Reunion, The Beta Version
by Choosing Sarah
Summary: The Fleet takes back New Caprica, but the war is still in full force. As Lee and Kara make amends, they find a chance to redirect the future if they can only reconcile the past. Kara/Lee. This story is a revamped version of my original and is still a wip.
1. Part 1

Title: Reunion

Author: Choosing Sarah

Rated: M for mature content

Spoilers: Through Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2 (2x20) plus Unfinished Business (3x09)

Timeframe: Occurs six months after the Season 2 finale where it AUs.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Battlestar Galactica characters or stories (etc). No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

Summary: The Fleet takes back New Caprica, but the war is still in full force. As Lee and Kara make amends, they find a chance to redirect the future if they can only reconcile the past. KaraLee

**Prologue Capture**

The brightness burns through his eyelids as if they're made of glass. Perversely, the first thought to cross his mind is that he's gone blind—a terrible fate for the commander of a battlestar, to be sure, but a far worse one had Lee still been a pilot. He cannot move his body, cannot so much as look to left or right for Kara—Kara, who'd summoned him here with her precipitousness and still remained elusive. Instead he keeps his lids closed to save his eyes and stretches his other senses as best as he can.

He's been drugged, that much isn't difficult to ascertain, but even through his groggy state, it feels as though the cylon ship he'd walked into earlier that day—is it still the same day?—is still parked on New Caprica. At the very least the gravity that holds him to the hard table beneath him seems natural rather than artificial. It's impossible, though, to tell if he's still on the exact same cylon vessel he'd followed Kara into or even if they're on the same planet.

He'd only trailed her by a couple hours, knowing as he did that the armistice she'd posed in the Admiral's stead would only keep her alive for so long—_gods!_ His jaw clenches at the thought. Even now, imprisoned by cylon captors, he's pissed at her for her godsdamned thoughtlessness. If only she'd let the marines do their frakkin' job, then neither one of them would be here now.

Abruptly he opens his eyes, which water immediately against the harsh light above him, around him, almost even inside him. Where the frak is she? He shouldn't have assumed she'd be near—just because the cylons brought her to him after he'd first come to establish diplomacy doesn't mean she's close by now. He shuts his eyes again, focuses all his energy on his throat, his lips and tongue.

"Kara!" he tries to yell and finally breathes weakly.

He senses movement somewhere near his head. Blessedly, the burning light dims, and a shape forms in front of his eyes.

"Commander Adama," it says, stiff in its politeness. It's a voice he never knew particularly well. Even with the vague form above him, he almost can't place it.

"Gaeta?" Lee manages, the question carried in the word acute.

"That's right," the other man continues, his voice detached even though he must realize Lee is drugged to the gills and holds the biggest secret Gaeta could have—which is itself the biggest secret and the best chance the decimated Colonial Fleet has going.

"What is—What the frak?" talking's not quite so difficult when he doesn't have to block out the blazing sun above him, but he still has trouble finding his words. "I—this is—we took out the basestars. We have New Caprica." He catches the other man's eye as carefully as he can, not knowing if he's even able to act surreptitiously at this point. "We called for an armistice."

Above him, Gaeta swallows and quickly diverts his attention elsewhere. Lee hopes his charged use of the word 'armistice' and Gaeta's reaction to it isn't as obvious to the cylons as it is to him.

Gaeta fiddles with some instruments or maybe controls on the side of the table—gurney?—Lee's lying on. "We know of the Fleet's control of New Caprican airspace, but I doubt you've completely overtaken cylon ground forces. It's only been eight hours since the last basestar fell," he says, and Lee is grateful to be given the timeframe. "And I worked under Admiral Adama for years," Gaeta begins again cautiously. "It seems unlikely he would seek peace with cylons. I know the cylons who allow us to work within the safety of the base must agree."

Lee narrows his gaze at the former lieutenant as best he can. Even knowing what he does, it's difficult to trust Gaeta's intentions when he plays the part of collaborator so well. "'Peace is a conversation.' Isn't that what Olirre used to say?"

Gaeta moves out of his direct line of sight—not that Lee could see much of him anyway, not with the backlighting—but Lee can still make out his shadow, can tell he's moving around. "I wouldn't have thought a Caprican to be so well versed in the works of an Aerlon Dissenter."

Again, Lee tries to gain a look around the room, but there's no way to decipher who (or what) else might be in there with him and Gaeta. Kara could be across the solar system for all he knows, and a hundred cylons might surround them. "I guess people can surprise you."

"True," Gaeta replies, and Lee sees a brief movement that seems to be the other man's nod. The idea is confirmed when Gaeta steps a little closer, back into view. "I know everyone on base was surprised to see Captain Thrace surrender at the outward perimeter," and when Gaeta speaks her name, he gestures to Lee's other side, as if unconsciously. Suddenly, Lee realizes she's been beside him all along.

Lee finds himself blinking rapidly, trying not to let the new data or his gratitude for it overwhelm him. "Well," he tries to shrug one shoulder, but it's too firmly secured to the table at his back. "You know Kara." His eyelids shut heavily over his gaze, without his leave to do so. It's as if saying her name aloud holds too much power over him now that Gaeta's confirmed she's alive and near.

"Not really," Gaeta moves around the table Lee's strapped to, flicking switches, moving dials, and finally shuffling towards where Kara must lay. "The only thing I ever really knew about Starbuck was that she always took too many chances."

Lee's lips try to rise at the irony. "Some chances are worth taking," he finally says.

Gaeta appears in front of him again without warning, tightens one of the straps holding Lee's head to the hard table beneath him. "Maybe," the former lieutenant allows, "but most aren't."

The shadows deepening Gaeta's features suddenly seem ominous when he leans over Lee. What if his father had been wrong? What if Gaeta had really been a collaborator all these months? What if the Fleet's call for armistice, however facetiously and calculated it truly was, hadn't been a product of Gaeta's work for the Admiral but had been a cylon machination from the beginning? What if the Fleet were truly at risk from this planet's last cylon stronghold? Lee can feel his blood pressure rise as the questions mount in his mind. What if he and Kara die for nothing?

But then Gaeta narrows the width of his mouth—as if to control his breathing. And he stills, as if unsure what to say. Eventually, the words he speaks are anticlimactic in their ordinariness, "I'll be ready to wake you up," he clears his throat as if a word had gotten stuck within, "later. I'll be ready to wake you up later," he repeats hurriedly.

No sooner does he finish speaking than Lee falls asleep.

B

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The screams that wake her up are her own. Kara realizes why she's yelling less than a second later—she's strapped down. Gods she's strapped down. She can't move a frakking muscle, can't even breathe deep. _Oh gods, oh gods, please! Please, please, please! _she begs within her own mind even as her voice keeps screaming without form.

"Can't you shut her up, already?" a harsh voice yells amid her screams, perhaps not for the first time.

"I had to wake her up to get a baseline," a second's tone, almost recognizable, begins more tentatively. "If I add another sedative now, it might limit the effectiveness of the experiment."

"Let me go! Let me go!" she hollers, the familiarity of the second voice spurring her own into words.

"Perhaps if we'd woken them at the same time—" that voice begins, only to be cut off by the first speaker, a woman with a distinctly Virgonese accent:

"Too late for that now," she says. Oddly, that brief phrase lets Kara recognize her first—she's a cylon. That frakkin' cylon reporter. Frakkin' cylon bitch!

"What the frak are you doing? Let me go!" Kara demands. "Let me go!" she nearly sobs the words.

"Pathetic," the frakking cylon dismisses her. "At least Commander Adama went quietly," she finishes smugly.

_Lee_, his name narrows her worries down to grief. _Oh gods Lee's here_, her memory rapidly spools through the battle for New Caprica, the brief but limited victory of the Fleet, and the chance she'd seen to better the Admiral's plan—to get their mole out, to steal cylon secrets. _I brought Lee here_. She thinks again,_ I brought this onto Lee._

"Maybe if we angle her head for a moment to see him she'll—"

"An excellent idea, Mr. Gaeta," the cylon bitch interrupts, at once effectively identifying the man's voice for Starbuck and seeming to take far too much pleasure in the idea of presenting Kara with Lee.

Clammy, male—human—hands settle about her face and loosen the hold of the metal across her chin and forehead. She twists her neck and finds Lee right away on a gurney beside her—so still. She's never seen him so unmoving, not when he crashed after nearly six days of no sleep just after the end of the worlds, not in the aftermath from when they'd fallen into bed together that night. She watches him, so still, and can't even breathe until she notes the slight motion of his chest beneath the cocoon of restraints the cylons have him contained by.

"Lee," she breathes his name as an apology, even while she has to squint against the brutal sting his name invokes. If he hadn't hated her before, he should now—if he lives long enough to do so.

"Take a good look, Captain Thrace," the cylon taunts as she steps up beside Lee, as she slides her fingers from his hip up his chest and into his hair. "He's whole for the moment, but he needn't be for our purposes," she concludes and then nods above Kara.

Kara doesn't look away from Lee—can't—not until heavy hands—frak they're Gaeta's hands—try to force her head back in position. "Please just one more minute," she begs in a whisper, and Gaeta doesn't immediately capitulate—frakkin' lapdog doesn't let her loose until the cylon bitch consents:

"Very well. Finish the preparations before you strap her back in," she directs the lapdog.

Kara breathes out heavily, regret filling her as her eyes fill up on Lee Adama. Gods did she frak it up this time. She should've let Sergeant Biggs do his duty, to call for the armistice and die with the honor such an important task would afford. She never even knew who the frakkin' mole was. How had she expected to get him out? So stupid. She'd only wanted to do something right by the Adamas for once. She'd only wanted to give something back to them. Now look what she's taking away.

Her thoughts scatter, incomplete. They're drugging her, she knows. She doesn't have much time left. _Gods, please_. She keeps her eyes to Lee instead of closing her lids like she usually does when she prays. _Please make this right. Let me make this right_, she barely completes her plea when a loud rumbling—something like a bomb exploding—resonates from above the room.

"What?" the cylon bitch seems to yell through the tiers of unconsciousness Kara's quickly slipping beneath. "Turn if off, Gaeta!" the cylon screams. "For God's sake turn it off, so we can get out of here before Baltar's little invention kills us all!"

A scurry of movement, both fabric and metal, commence in panicked layers. She watches, almost disconnected from the moment, as Gaeta rushes to a console between her and Lee, pressing buttons, typing data.

"Kara," she sees her name come from Lee's lips.

"Lee," she tries to answer back, and she just barely has time to wonder if they've been saved or damned because there's no one even to ask before the darkness envelopes her and takes her away.

**Chapter 1 Home**

"Aren't you awake yet?" The soft tones of his mother reach him in the dark.

"Mom?" Lee tries to relax further into unconsciousness, to hold onto whatever dream he's having. He hears the pattern of shift and scratch as someone walks toward him.

"Lee? Lee." A gentle shake finally wakes him completely and brings him to pry open his lids. But instead of Pegasus' ceiling staring him in the face, it's his mother eyes.

"Mom?" He reaches out a hand, sure that her image will dissipate with his touch. "What's going on?" No sooner does he ask than the memory of his circumstances on the cylon ship on New Caprica return, of Gaeta—both traitor and savior, of the Armistice Operation set in place to take out the cylons' ability to pursue the Fleet, of waking up twice on a gurney—first to the coldness of calculations he feared he might not have been a part of and second to vague sounds of battle confusion and artillery. Last he recalls the memory of Kara's voice, calling to him as oblivion overtook him again.

"You must have forgotten to set your alarm." His mom brushes back his hair. "Michael and Jason will be here to pick you up any minute."

"Who?" For a second the names mean nothing to him.

"Your trip to Tauron. Your last hurrah before War College?" she says a little more wryly.

"Michael Jessup and Jason Saracen." The memory returns to him abruptly. "They were my friends at the Academy."

"So you've told me." Caroline Adama smiles. "You better hurry or you won't make your flight." She turns to leave.

"Mom?" Lee sits up and surveys the room, seeing his designated room in his mother's house. "How did I get here, back on Caprica?" His gaze returns to Caroline. "How did you survive?"

"Survive?" Even in the dark, Lee can see his mother's eyes widen in concern. "What are you talking about Lee? Did you hit your head?"

"No, no." He watches his mother sit on the bed and reach for his face. "I just…" He swallows, considering the unreality of the situation. "I think I had a nightmare." And for a moment Lee can almost believe that the last three years had been just that—only that. He shakes off the seductiveness of the idea with a shake of his head. "Where's Dad?"

Caroline immediately straightens and looks away. "I imagine he's on the Galactica. I haven't spoken to him since the last court hearing."

"I've got to talk to him," he says, mostly to himself.

When his mother quickly turns back to him, Lee realizes the strangeness of his announcement, or rather how strange such an announcement would be if he were actually speaking to his mother. "I…Its about work."

"I—I'm happy," she stutters, "If you're speaking to your father again. You know we both love you very much, and that's never going to change."

He and Zak had rolled their eyes to this same speech more than once after their parents announced their decision to divorce. "Mom, I'm nearly thirty."

"Lee Adama, you're twenty-two years old. As your mother, I can assure you that is most certainly not 'nearly thirty'."

"Twenty-two?" He'd been twenty-five when Zak died. If he were really twenty-two now, did that mean… "Zak?"

"His classes start Monday if that's what you're asking." Caroline grabs his hand. "Maybe I should take you to the emergency room."

"No." Lee holds her grip and looks at her—really looks at his mother, and lets himself believe—could it be possible? "Mom. I'm all right, but I'm going to cancel my trip to Tauron. I'm going to go see Zak instead."

Caroline's hand relaxes slightly in his. "I think that's a good idea. I know it's his sophomore year, but it's his first year without you there to guide him. That campus is so big. In any case, I worry less when the two of you are together."

She barely finishes speaking when he opens his mouth again. "I love you, Mom." That must've sounded as abrupt as it felt—Caroline crinkles her brow a moment, but then she simply smiles.

"I love you, too, pumpkin." And when she hugs him, she still smells like lilacs.

B

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Kara wakes at once, with no desire to linger in sleep. She sits up immediately, tears the covers off her legs to stand and be rid of anything that would hold her down. It's only then, as she can freely move and look about the room that she really takes the chance to breathe in, calm down.

The small bedroom and soft light make for only vaguely familiar surroundings to her in her frantic state. She turns to the bedside table, freezes when she sees the picture of her dad and her leaning against a table lamp. It had been taken just before her eighth birthday on one of his last regular visits to see her. She'd burned it when she'd heard from a radio announcer that he died—over five years ago.

_It has to be a copy_. She picks up the picture, breaks the frame to get it out. She flips it to the back and there, in bold red lettering, is her father's handwriting, _A winter's day with my snow angel_. "What the frak?" she asks aloud. She throws the picture on the bed and backs away, clawing for the closet behind her so she can grab the tire iron leaning against the wall. It isn't until she opens the bedroom door that she realizes how she knew the tire iron was there: She's in her old apartment. On Picon.

B

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Lee hasn't even found his luggage when he hears a low familiar voice behind him. "You crazy motherfrakker, what are you doing here?"

"Zak," Lee says his name like it's as breakable as the man who held it. A young and skinny Zak Adama strides over to his big brother. He gives Lee a brief hug and would've moved away after two pats on the back, but Lee holds on.

When Lee finally lets his little brother go, he notes a worried look on Zak's face. "What's wrong? Mom said you'd been acting weird."

Lee simply smiles through a shrug and keeps his eye on his brother. Zak leads him through the airport, all the while detailing the stats of his new roommate's "utterly hot" girlfriend as they trudge towards the old junker Lee bought when he was a junior at the academy. He'd given it to Zak after graduation. The little coup is exactly the same—right down to the miniature island dancer on the dash.

Lee watches his brother drive through familiar streets, streets that should've been annihilated years ago by the nukes directed at Fleet Headquarters, near the colonial military academy they'd both attended. It's already evening on this side of Picon, and the planet's three moons shimmer in the bay as Zak takes the bridge over to the campus. Still everything Lee sees on this trip, everything he's seen since he woke up and saw his mother, is more plausible than finding Zak, alive and jabbering, like he always does in Lee's memories and dreams. Lee shakes his head. "It isn't real," he whispers to himself.

"Did you say something, bro?" Zak interrupts his debate with himself on the girlfriend's possible measurements.

"Umm," Lee thinks but can't pick up on that thread in the conversation, so he changes the subject. "Have you talked to Dad lately?"

A look of incredulity is Zak's first response. "Are you serious?"

Lee shrugs. "Yeah. Why?"

"Why? Oh maybe because six months ago you told me not to mention that we had a father unless it was absolutely necessary."

"I know what I said, Zak," Lee nearly stutters his brother's name, a reflex atrophied through lack of use. "I just need to talk to him."

"Did something happen?" His little brother looks suddenly so concerned. He always used to do that, Lee remembers in a flash. Zak could switch gears at the speed of sound. "Is there something you don't want to tell Mom about?" Zak asks.

Lee shakes his head, then stops, just looking at Zak. "Everything's OK, I just…" He clears his throat. What if it _is_ real? What if there's even the slightest chance? "I'm not sure what's happened," Lee confesses. "I just need to talk to Dad."

Zak nods as he pulls into the only parking space left on the block, respecting Lee's privacy—for now. He was always the nosiest little SOB when it came to Lee's secrets. "Galactica's taking part in war games somewhere near the Clusterfrak at Geminon," Zak informs him.

"Does anybody actually know the name of that nebula?" The brothers exchange grins.

"Nobody in my year anyway." Zak retrieves Lee's duffle from the trunk.

Lee's lips fall at that pronouncement. "That's right you're a sophomore." He grabs his bag from Zak's outstretched hand. How the hell is Lee going to meet Starbuck if Zak doesn't know her already?

Zak rolls his eyes. "Everybody's got to start somewhere. Don't start that 'I'm older than you and know so much better' crap."

"No, no, nothing like that." Lee shakes his head, trailing behind Zak as he leads toward the underclassman dorms. "It's just that you don't start basic flight for another year and a half." Zak's look of puzzlement causes him to continue. "It's just that there's this instructor, but you wouldn't have met her yet."

"Is she good?"

Lee chuckles. "She's a force of nature."

"What's her name?" Zak ushers Lee through the double doors of the dorm entrance.

"Kara," he speaks on a sigh, adjusting the weight of his bag. "Kara Thrace."

"Oh it's like that?" A grin emphasizes the connotation.

"What? No! Of course not!" he flusters. "Get your mind out of the gutter!"

Zak eyes him dubiously. "Is she somehow in your chain of command?"

"No," Lee strives for casual. When Zak continues to watch him, Lee elaborates, "Kara is more your speed than mine."

Zak nods and looks away. He seems not to notice when Lee changes the subject to ask about Zak's class assignments, but Lee knows he is aware.

They barely get through the dorm lobby when a cute little brunette eyes his brother up and down, posing invitingly in her room's doorframe. "Hey Zak, are we still going to Chalmer's tonight?"

Zak eyes her right back, then looks to Lee before turning back to the girl. "My brother just got back in town."

"Don't change your plans because of me," Lee is quick to interject.

The younger Adama winces. "Well, I don't want to leave you when you came to see me, and it's not really your scene," Zak explains. "It's a dance club, not a jazz bar."

"No, I'm cool with it." He'd enjoyed Chalmer's many times before with Kara or Zak or both. "I've been there."

The brunette shakes her head at Lee, a frown on her pretty face. "How could you have been there? It just opened up two weeks ago."

Lee clears his throat. "I meant metaphorically."

Zak exchanges a glance with the girl, and Lee realizes he knows her. Her name is Rachel. She'd been Zak's on-again, off-again girlfriend until he met Kara.

Zak shrugs and smiles. "If you want to go slumming with a bunch of sophomores…" He grins, but thankfully leaves it at that. "We're going to go get ready." Zak indicates Lee, and when he leans in to kiss his girl, Lee moves down the hallway to get out of their way. He hears his brother follow him, but then Rachel calls Zak's name.

Zak's only a couple paces behind Lee when she asks, "Are you done with that Military Tactics book I gave you?"

Zak shifts his feet before answering. "Um, yeah," he looks at Lee, "Give me a minute, and I'll bring it right down."

Lee and Zak take the stairs to the fifth floor, passing all tastes of music and at least one flooded bathroom. No sooner do they reach Zak's room, than he ransacks it and hurries out the door. "I'll be right back," he calls over his shoulder.

B

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Kara looks at the underclassman dormitory. The directory listed it as Zak Adama's residence. She's never been here before. He'd already moved out by the time he'd met her. "He's alive," she tries to convince herself. "He has to be alive because you're not even a flight instructor yet, and you've never even met him." She imagines she must look crazy sitting on the curb across the street from the building talking to herself.

If only Lee had been at his mother's house when she called. Then she'd at least know if she is in this alone or not. Earlier she'd prayed that whatever the cylons had done to put her here, they did to Lee too. She'd felt so guilty afterward, but couldn't bring herself to take it back, couldn't stand the idea of being adrift in the past without a tether to cling to. "Please be here Lee." She stands and fishes her cell phone from her pocket. "Please remember me," she says a little more softly and steels herself for hearing Zak's voice.

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Lee studies his brother's dorm room. Zak's roommate isn't in, but he's left his mess all over the carpet. The sloppiness of his belongings had always epitomized his character, Lee quickly remembers. It had gotten Zak in trouble on more than one surprise inspection, and Lee had never been able to tolerate the roommate as a result. Lee stands there for a long moment trying to remember the man's name. Then in lieu of that, he tries to remember if he's supposed to know it. The phone rings. He peers in the hall, but Zak is nowhere in sight. He picks up the receiver, nearly answers as 'Commander Adama,' recalling just in time that he isn't. "Hello?"

"Lee?" the voice is emphatic, without pause.

"Kara?" he responds automatically. It occurs to him a moment later that if events are as they appear, then the two of them shouldn't have met yet.

Kara recovers first. "So, Apollo. What the frak is going on?"

"Where are you?" He has to know, has to see her.

"I'm outside. I couldn't…" she trails off. "I just couldn't."

"It's OK. I know. Stay there, I'm coming." He doesn't bother saying goodbye. He just runs for Starbuck.

B

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_He's coming_. She shuts her eyes and closes her phone. "Thank you Lords of Kobol." Kara takes a deep breath, peers into the lobby through the picture window, and opens the front door to the building. She doesn't know what direction Lee will come from, so she makes sure she's visible from all angles. She keeps her ears open for his footsteps and waits.

Her feet are planted next to a dilapidated plastic tree that she doubts she could identify if she were a botanist. And then she hears _His_ voice—Zak's voice—he is somewhere close by, probably in a dorm room and definitely in the middle of an argument. She has to find him, has to see him talking, walking, gods—just breathing. Numbly, she follows the sound down the hallway to an open doorway. And there's Zak Adama, in tanks and sneakers having his particular type of conversation with a delicate-looking brunette, just his kind of woman before he'd met her. He takes her breath away.

"Why the hell is your tight-ass brother coming tonight anyway?" the girl yells at Zak. Before he can respond, Kara hears herself speak,

"You have got to be talking about Lee Adama."

Zak startles at the sound of her voice. He turns to her, a scathing comment on his lips she's sure, until he notes the bar on her uniform. He narrows his eyes at her instead. "Do you know my brother, sir?"

"Yeah." _You introduced me to him_. "I know Lee." She leans against the doorframe and watches Zak Adama take two steps toward her, a gleam beginning in his eye as it roams from her face down. Despite the pleasure she takes in seeing his beautiful body moving and shifting in front of her, and despite the fact that he's less than a meter away, the clearest emotion she feels at this moment is the loss of him. On his way back up, Zak catches sight of her name printed so neatly on her breast pocket, and, oddly, he backs off.

"Lieutenant Kara Thrace," his voice is polite but warm, inviting.

She searches his eyes. "You've heard of me." Does she sound too hopeful, she wonders?

"Lee told me you're a flight instructor."

Her stomach clenches at his words like they're an accusation. "Um, no." She looks down, can't quite meet his gaze. "But I will be by the end of the semester."

"Lee also said you're a force of nature, sir."

The description catches her off-guard, tricks her into looking back into Zak's face. "Call me Kara, Cadet," she tells him, feeling like she's stepping back into herself after a brief respite.

He stretches out his hand to her. "Zak."

She shakes the hand briefly, snatches her hand back, but then doesn't quite know what to do with it.

"Kara!" Lee's voice calls to her from down the hall.

"Lee!" she yells back, running to him before she knows it. She whispers when he grabs her, "Oh gods, Lee!" And Lee Adama folds her in his arms with a warmth she hasn't felt from him since she left his bed for someone else's. She hides her face against his chest to discourage tears or at least to hide them. He strokes her chin-length hair and calms her heart beating so furiously in her chest.

"It's so good to see you," she emphasizes, but he hasn't spoken another word. He puts his hands on either side of her face and gently tugs. Kara lets him guide her eyes to his. She finally sees his face. "You're so young," she gasps, tracing the corner of his eye where the little worry wrinkles were starting to appear back in their real life. He smiles, but remains eerily silent, panicking her into feeling she's all alone again, like when she woke up this morning, but somehow worse. She slides her fingers to the side of his face, pinching his ear hard. "Frakkin' talk to me Apollo!"

He winces and slaps her fingers. "Aah! Son of a toaster, Starbuck!" She breathes deeply again. "Must you always resort to violence?"

"I must," she affirms with a grin. "I really must." The kindness of his smile captures her completely. Then the shuffling of feet behind her distracts them both, and Lee lets go of her like she's fire.

She turns to see Zak walking—_actually walking_—towards them, and she reaches for Lee's hand with both of hers, her only grip on reality. She can see Lee turn to her out of the corner of her eye before refocusing on his brother. "Kara Thrace," Lee indicates her with his free hand, "this is Zak Adama—my brother and one of the best men I've ever known."

"Thanks Lee." Zak's eyes shoot from her to Lee at this pronouncement, and Kara knows it's because he'd never felt good enough to even be Lee Adama's kid brother, let alone someone Lee could admire. "Kara and I already met," Zak announces, and Kara can feel Lee's hand tense beneath hers. "She introduced herself about two minutes ago. Oh but," he indicates the girl he'd been arguing with, "I didn't get to introduce my friend. This is Cadet Rachel Terrence."

"Sir." Rachel nods to her.

Kara shakes her head. "It's Starbuck." She looks between Rachel and Zak, finally connecting her name with an old memory. "Or you can call me Kara."

"Kara." Rachel smiles at her, such a wide smile to give a stranger. "A group of us are going to Chalmer's tonight if you want to come." The Cadet sneaks a look at Lee. "Zak already talked Lieutenant Adama into going."

"Lieutenant Adama?" Kara raises her eyebrow at Lee, who just shrugs. "If you're as good a friend of Zak's as I think you are, you need to call this hemorrhoid on a cylon's ass Lee."

Rachel tries not to laugh. Kara can see it in the way the other woman's ears turn red before she finally gives into a guffaw. The girl looks to Lee in horror. "I'm so sorry, sir, I just—"

Lee waves her off. "It's OK. Kara's right."

Kara exhales and smiles through her teeth. "If only there were a way to laminate those words."

Lee puts his nose to hers. "And yet," he smirks and whispers, "there's not." Kara bites her bottom lip in a vain attempt to contain her smile at the lack of pretence between them. Lee's eyes check the motion. Then he blinks slowly and backs away. "I…" Lee clears his throat, maybe his vision too, before looking up at Zak. "Somehow I doubt that Starbuck even owns a dress."

She socks his arm. "Hey!" He uses her preoccupation to slide his fingers from hers. Starbuck's brow automatically furrows at the loss of his warmth. When she looks up, she notes Zak very carefully following the byplay. Her cheeks heat with guilt before she can remember he doesn't even know her. "I'll have you know I own several dresses, Lee Adama. All of them earned in some hard-won games of triad."

The only recognition Lee gives her joke is a look both cool and fleeting, but across from them Rachel and Zak start chuckling. Kara laughs with them, but in reflex, not in humor.

"I think this is where we separate." Zak motions to Lee when the laughter dies. "You're coming with us, right, Kara?"

She starts when he says her name. "Right Zak." She points toward the front door. "I'll just go home and change, and I'll meet you there."

Lee grabs her hand as she moves away. His grip is hard, but his thumb moves in a caress that's so light over her wrist, she has to stretch her awareness as far as she can to keep feeling it. "Kara," he says. And she tries not to hear any promises in the way he says her name.

Slowly, she looks up and meets his gaze. "Later," she answers automatically, but he doesn't let go. His eyes search hers, concern shining clearly, like he hadn't just discarded her hand like it had hurt him to hold it. She smiles, oddly reassured by his need for assurance. She turns to Rachel. And Zak. "23:30?"

"Yes," Lee affirms, loosening his grasp, sliding his grip down her hand. She squeezes his fingers, and then, like always, Lee Adama lets her walk away.


	2. Part 2

See first installment for headers and disclaimer.

**Chapter 2 Thread of Life**

Kara's barely out of his sight, and he regrets letting her go. Lee distractedly notes Rachel's enthusiasm for the evening has increased substantially in the last ten minutes. She shuffles the Adama brothers out of her doorway, almost slams it in their wake in her eagerness to dress for the night out. Zak practically bounces up the stairs, but Lee travels more conservatively toward the fifth floor, deep in thought. _Why did he let Kara go alone?_ She has to be reeling, hell he's reeling. He should've…

"What's with this 'Apollo' crap?" Zak interrupts Lee's internal monologue when he re-enters his brother's dorm room.

"Huh?" Lee checks through his duffel for club wear.

Zak pulls his tanks over his head. "Your friend Kara called you Apollo."

"Oh, it's my call sign," Lee relays.

"You have the call sign of a god?" Zak stops in his search for his toiletries to laugh at the idea.

Lee's lips press together. "Son of Zeus."

Zak looks away, a brief flash of annoyance on his face. "When did you get gifted with it?" he moves on.

"Umm…" Lee falters. He'd gotten rid of his nugget call sign fairly late. He hadn't been gifted until the first week of War College—two weeks away from now. "It was after one of the instructors caught some old footage of Dad," he compromises the when for how. "Played it during a lecture. Then presto," Lee pulls his hands out of his bag to gesture. "Instant call sign."

"It could be worse." Zak finally finds his shaving cream. "They could call you junior," he teases.

"Don't even joke about that." Lee smiles, letting himself be drawn out for a moment. Then the surrealism of his current conversation hits him all of a sudden: He's standing in Zak's dorm room, talking with him about issues that haven't really mattered in a long while. He's talking with Zak—his dead brother.

Lee sits down on the edge of Zak's bed. He takes a deep breath and smells that spicy shampoo that Zak used to use, the peppermint of his favorite bubblegum, and beneath them both, a scent Lee didn't realize he'd known, let alone forgotten. "It _is _real." He can barely hear himself think for all the ideas that pummel his psyche at once. He stands up abruptly, startles Zak when he grabs his hand.

"Hey!" Cadet Adama steps backward but can't escape his brother's grip.

"Zak, you know I love you, right?"

"Yeah, what the hell is wrong with you, Lee?" Zak looks to Lee's hand then back to his face.

"Nothing. Nothing." Lee shakes his head but can't even blink for fear of what might happen if he takes his eyes off Zak. "You know there's a hell of a lot more to life than flying, right? That crap Dad used to say, 'A man isn't a man—'"

"Until he wears the wings of a viper pilot," Zak finishes with a nod.

Again Lee shakes his head, knowing his eyes are intense by the way Zak's face crumples and shifts in response. "It's not true. I didn't feel any more like a man after I got my wings. I do love to fly," he backtracks in order to be truthful, "But it's despite what Dad said, not because of it."

"Hey, I don't want to get in the middle." Zak raises his free hand. "With Anne as sick as she is, Dad needs all the support he can get."

"Look, I'm not trying to turn you against him." Lee loosens his grip by sheer force of will. "Maybe I did before," he continues when Zak opens his mouth in silent rebuttal. "I don't remember. I'm just saying that I was wrong." That gets his brother's attention. Lee tries to calm his thoughts by regulating his breathing. "I thought that I was headed in the direction I was because it was what _I_ wanted, but I was wrong. I hated the idea of turning into Dad, and because of that I became someone I couldn't recognize. I don't want to see that happen to you."

Zak searches his brother's eyes, studies the tenseness of his muscles. "OK," Zak nods. "I'll be sure if I go after it that I want it."

Lee averts his eyes, sniffs, swallows. "Good," he nods back to his kid brother. Belatedly, he lets go of Zak's hand, suddenly realizing that, as a viper pilot, his grip far supersedes that of his brother. He had to have hurt him. "Geez Zak, I, um…" he starts to apologize. Zak waves him off.

"No harm done," Zak demonstrates with a crack of his wrist and a wiggle of his fingers. "But for frak's sake, Lee," Zak sets an arm across his shoulders. "You seriously need to get laid."

B

S

G

The music expands from the speakers, fills the air, and pounds on the walls—the ceiling—the floor—like it's dying to get out. It thrums through Lee like a viper through a never-ending tunnel launch. He checks his watch and notes it's still a couple minutes too soon for Kara. While she wouldn't miss this next reunion with Zak, he knows she wouldn't dare to come early for it either—too much anticipation in too public a venue.

Lee busies himself by ordering four shots of Ambrosia at the bar. He returns to his brother's group of friends, who light up when they see the alcohol, apparently thinking Lee bought the drinks for them. For a moment, he very nearly feels abashed that he has no plans to share with them. Before they can reach for the shots, Starbuck swiftly comes up on their 3 o'clock in a flirty little black dress that hugs her ass just right. She bypasses the table for the liquor.

She takes her shots from his hands, leaving him his two. They give a private toast, one that's never had words, but one that Lee always approximates to something like, _I'm glad we're here together_. He wonders if Kara ever tried to vocalize their ritual, even internally. Probably not, he decides as they share their second shot on the heels of the first; she's more likely to take life as it comes rather than talk to it once it gets there. He and Kara set their empty glasses on the table beside them—the one Zak and his friends have gathered 'round, but she still avoids eye contact with the younger set.

Instead, she flattens her palm on Lee's chest, spreading her fingers and maximizing points of contact. "Hey," her lips form the greeting.

"Hey." He brings his hand over hers and holds it to him.

Zak slides from his chair to approach Kara. He talks in Kara's ear. It looks like he says, "It's good to see you again." There's nothing sexual in the gesture, just a man trying to be heard over the din of the bass, but it startles Kara. She recovers well, laughs at herself, but Lee can tell she's shaken. Zak asks her to dance, and Lee lets her go so the two can make their way to the middle of the floor. The table's other occupants also pair off or look for partners, leaving Lee alone with Rachel at its tall, round surface.

Lee watches Kara with his brother, forcing himself to note, as he often did when she and Zak were engaged, that they were truly good together. He wants to be able to smile at the picture they make, a picture he never thought he'd see again. He blinks away.

He senses Rachel sipping her smuggled cocktail beside him and turns to face her. "Would you like to dance, too?" he asks her belatedly, just realizing he's being rude to her.

She curls an arm around his and smiles. "I would, Lee," she tries out his given name. "Thanks."

Lee immediately stands and pulls out her chair. He takes Rachel's hand and leads her through the maze of gyrating bodies, near the others. There is no other way to dance but close together, and although Lee is accustomed to tight quarters and no privacy due to nearly six years aboard various Battlestars, he is still somehow unprepared for the strange intimacy of dancing with his brother's sometime girlfriend when both she and Zak are supposed to be dead.

It's too much. They've only been on the floor a couple minutes, but Lee is ready to ask Rachel if she wouldn't mind sitting back down. He actually opens his mouth to ask, when he sees Rachel turn. He feels her squeeze his hand and watches her disappear, leaving Starbuck in her wake.

"Hey flyboy," Kara teases, and pulls him to her until they're forehead to forehead. She places her hands at either side of his head, directly over his ears. "Shh," she moves her lips, drawn pinker tonight than he's used to. The sound is blocked, but he feels her meaning in the vibration of the air between them. She touches his mouth with hers fleetingly, and it is not enough—it is never enough—but it brings his focus to her and the points where they touch.

Her diversion works, but then, for whatever reason, she kisses him again. He kisses her back. He opens his mouth and tastes the waxy film of the lipstick he's ruining, and the sweet, thick Ambrosia she'd drunk with him. When his tongue slips and slides with hers, he tastes a memory that would've been better off forgotten had he ever been capable of doing so. She moans in his mouth, and he forgets where he is, what is happening. Later he'll realize that he even forgot Zak.

He runs his hands down her sides, skims his fingertips against her thighs, grabs her tight ass with both hands, and kneads. Her gasp and her hands running through his hair urge him to whisper her name, more than anything to remind himself it's really her he's with.

"Lee!" she moans back, right below his ear, and he hadn't realized until that moment how much he'd needed her to say his name, to acknowledge him, his hands on her body, his need mixed with hers. He recaptures her lips and just as quickly loses them again to her abandon when his hand follows the line at the top of her thigh to tease a finger inside her.

"Ahh!" she breathes in a squeal, her legs parting wider to accommodate him. With head leaned back, she shuts her eyes and breathes in and out shakily while he plays inside her. She slips a hand down his back as if forgetting it belongs to her even as she grabs him roughly by the hair with the other. He gasps wetly at the lightning of sensation her fingernails score through his hair and lets her lead his mouth to her neck. Gods how he remembers the way she kept exposing her neck to him—just like this—that only other time he'd ever been inside her.

The arm she'd held lax suddenly tightens on his lower back, yanking his shirt up where it rests against his slacks. Her eager fingers lay claim to him. He bares his teeth as the idea mixes with the sensation. He only has a moment to feel that soft skin on his back before a curt tap on his shoulder stops him from marking her neck with his teeth. He looks behind him to find two very large men that can only be marines or bouncers. Still, he has to blink a few times before he can make the connection between their presence and his position, before he realizes they're kicking him and Kara out.

"We're going to have to ask you to take this out of here, sir." The bigger guy points to the red exit sign. Lee licks his lips, suddenly very aware of where they are, where his hands are. He nods and slowly eases out of her. Less hurriedly, she scratches her fingernails down his back, at once jerking his gaze and all his attention back to her.

Her lips curl devilishly when she lightly shoves him away. "You heard the man, Lieutenant."

B

S

G

The night is warm when Kara steps back outside, no doubt the Ambrosia already hard at work, but Lee's hand spanning her lower back is even hotter. She feels his tenseness in the quick and measured beats of his footsteps, sees it spanning his features with the blank shock that's not quite worn away since the bouncers interrupted them. She lets him lead her behind the club and away from hearing range, while she watches the ground they overtake, considering how she might make him forget he just broke about seven aspects of Fleet Policy in order to get him to do it again. He stops her on the walkway between the parking lot and the back of the building.

"What the hell did you drive?" he begs with such strained urgency she answers immediately.

"It's the red truck near the lot entrance," she barely replies when he grabs her arm and drags her in that direction. She looks between his profile and the asphalt in front of her. "Oh," she swallows a breath and pulls on his hand. He doesn't query why, just turns and kisses her, mouth open, one hand in hers, the other blazing a trial to her thigh. She swings both arms around his neck, sends her hands gripping and twisting through his hair. His freed digits immediately join their counterparts below her waist.

He pushes her backward, leans her against the hood of an anonymous car. Her legs capture him by instinct. Her fingers work their way under his collar to caress his bare back, remembering how he used to beg her for a backrub when they'd been on Galactica together. He was always more content with light fingers than digging thumbs. It didn't take her long to realize he just wanted to be touched.

His shuddering sigh forces her eyes up, but she is soon distracted by the audience of underclassmen she spies over Lee's shoulder. With anyone else she wouldn't care—privacy was a luxury that hadn't survived the end of the worlds—but Lee has a tendency to get shy when he's caught with is pants down.

"Come on flyboy," she urges him up with a little push to his chest. He backs off after another kiss to the side of her neck and finds her eye, only then ascertaining her intention to pause for a better venue, not to halt altogether. His sigh this time is of relief. He peeks behind him at her vehicle and tugs her hand. They hurry towards it.

"Where are your keys?" he demands, glancing over her body and seeming to note the lack of purse.

She shakes her head and reaches in her pocket to unpin the two keys there. "I don't think so Apollo. This is my ride."

"You've had too much to drink," he insists, holding out his hand.

"I had two shots of Ambrosia, same as you."

"How much did you have before you left home?"

She stares at him in silence a moment, somehow unused to him knowing her so well despite the fact that he's probably always known this about her. The intensity of his stare actually makes her breath catch—gods it feels so good to have him look at her again. This time when he prods her with an open hand, she releases the keys. He unlocks the passenger door first, opens it, and helps her in. She's still surprised enough to let him. He goes around the vehicle and climbs in himself. He starts the truck and moves down the road. He follows the street signs and speed limits to her home, but she sees his fingers, itchy on the wheel, and the measured restraint in his leg as he strains to keep from opening up the throttle. She keeps to her side of the cab, watching him as he watches the road: the quick rise and shallow fall of his chest, the clenching and unclenching of his jaw, the constant shifting of his legs and seat as he adjusts and re-adjusts. All these things seem to support the unbelievable conclusion that this moment is really happening.

He parks in her assigned spot next to her apartment building as if he did it every night. He nearly jumps from the truck, runs around to get her door. She beats him to it, afraid the gods or Lee will change their minds. He takes her hand, and they hustle up the stairs. He unlocks her door with the key he still carries. He ushers her inside, then follows himself. When he shuts and locks the door, she pushes him into it.

Her hands yank on both sides of his shirt, ripping off a few buttons as she exposes his chest to her eyes, her touch. She traces his pecs with her fingers, leans in a second to bite the skin above, trying to force his submission, to ensure his focus stays on her, on what they're doing in this moment. He leans against the door and lets her.

She kisses her way to his mouth while her hands tease their way to his slacks. She unbuttons, unzips, aches to make him undone. He gentles her fervor with the heat, the single-minded drive of his kisses. And she's so grateful, so glad to be given another chance. Gods how she loves the feel of his mouth, the taste of him! She can't get enough of the elusive flavor.

She kicks off her heels. They strike sharply on the wooden floor behind her. She feels Lee's balance change twice as he toes off his own shoes. She reaches into his boxers while she's got him trapped, strokes up…down, but can't stand her own slow pace. She has to wrap her hand around him. His cock, hot and twitching in her grasp, seems as anxious to be inside her as she is to feel him there.

She slowly backs towards the general direction of the bedroom, moves a little faster when she's sure he's coming with her. He keeps her lips connected to his with a hand on the back of her head. She keeps his hips close with the grip she has on him. She's glad the only light in the room comes from the streetlamps streaming through the blinds. She's scared any more illumination would remind him too much of who he's with, what she's done. He sheds his shirt from his shoulders, lifts his hands high on her arms, pulls her closer to him even as he pushes her backward, urges them to move faster. His grasp directs her to the first bedroom door.

"The next one's mine," she whispers through kisses, not sure if he forgot or is simply too distracted. They make it through her doorway, towards her bed. She has to let go of him while he strips her dress from her body, freeing her breasts and leaving her only in her panties. His hands canvas the uncovered skin. His lips follow. "Lee!" she's tricked into a giggle and bids him back up with a hand on his chin when he reaches her ticklish belly. He grins up at her before obeying the command, the glee in his eyes so light-hearted it takes her breath away. _Oh, gods Lee, __I love you, too_, she thinks the words but doesn't dare say them aloud.

When he straightens, she grabs his pants on either side of the open zipper and pulls him to her. His hands close roughly above her elbows like he's going to stop her, but he doesn't, just holds on tight enough that she knows she'll have bruises tomorrow. She slips her hands around his waist, reaches beneath the waistband of his boxers, holds his ass in both hands. His swallow is audible. He clears his throat. Their eyes meet. And he looks so open, so bare. He only holds her gaze a second, maybe two, before his mouth goes deliberately, purposefully—straight for her neck, licking and nipping and biting, distracting her even from the grip she has beneath his shorts.

His hands leave her abruptly, and she watches as he reaches down, yanks off his clothes. His body is naked in front of her, and his hands are just as warm when he brings them back to her body, but his eyes don't meet hers again.

_I love you, Lee_, she thinks again as he jerks her panties roughly down her thighs.

_I love you, Lee_,she bites her lip when they fall back heavily on the bed.

_I love you, Lee_, she arches her back when he pushes inside.

"I love you, Lee," she mouths the words once he falls asleep.

**Chapter 3 Immersion**

Bacon. Lee smells bacon for the first time in a year—since the Fleet ran out. He looks beside him, but Starbuck's already out of bed. Bacon. He sniffs, pulls on his boxers and one of Kara's oversized T-shirts and follows the scent into the kitchen. Barely dressed in a pair of running shorts and one very non-regulation tank, Kara stands in front of the stove, spatula in hand. The bacon fries in one skillet, what looks like the beginnings of an omelet in the next. She must've been to the corner convenience store already this morning, there's no way she had all these ingredients in her fridge last night.

Lee stills to watch her as she moves in her kitchen. His eyes traverse her body, pausing where the shorts barely cover her best before studying her motions again. After a moment, her movements become more stilted—she knows he's watching her. She angles her neck to one side, as if he could kiss it from here. He breathes out, just a little, at the telegraphed invitation. The muscles in his chest relax a touch. He almost even smiles as he steals up behind her and gingerly slips his arms around her waist. When Kara leans back into him immediately, he eases into her more completely.

His lips touch to her shoulder—just a little tease. Her teeth close over her bottom lip, but she still smiles.

"Come to mark me some more flyboy?" she asks, then slides a hand up to hold him to her.

He doesn't answer, just continues lightly pressing his lips to her skin, finally nuzzling her neck just to feel her breathing become uneven, to know it gets to her, too.

"Morning," he finally says and eases away to try to look at her.

She clears her throat, straightens her neck out, and replies, "Good morning."

They stand there beside each other for a moment with him watching her profile, safe from the burn of her eyes for a moment. When she turns to him, he's grateful that she lifts her gaze slowly because it stills him where he stands. As she watches him, she tries to smile a little—not a hint of a smirk, nor the idea that the night before was at all a joke to her. He breathes out a little bit more, and her smile becomes jovial, becomes a grin. So of course he smiles back.

The ringing of a cell phone causes him to look away. She starts to move from the stove, but he waves her off and goes to fetch the source of the sound in the living room.

"Should be on the desk by the door," she yells from the kitchen.

The little black phone is exactly where she says. "Hello?" he picks it up without looking at the ID screen, forgetting that he can.

"Lee!" His brother's voice comes clearly across the line. "So this is Kara's number. It was on my ID but without a name, so I wasn't sure."

"Zak." Lee's heart nearly stops. He has to sit down. He maneuvers over to Kara's sofa, barely remaining on his feet until then. The screech of metal on metal tells Lee that Kara's moving the pans off the fire. Her steps behind him confirm her eavesdropping.

"When I told you to get laid, I had no idea you would take me so seriously," Zak chuckles.

"Gods, Zak, I'm sorry!" Lee squeezes his eyes shut, feels his stomach sour, waits for the condemnation he knows he deserves. "I don't know why I would—" he cuts himself off. "I didn't even think—"

"Hey, don't worry," Zak interrupts. "We all got home safe. Hooper, that guy with the brown hair and glasses? He gave us a lift. He can't drink because of some enzyme thing, but he stills likes to go out," Zak offers while Lee's still considering the ramifications of his actions last night.

"But Kara—" Lee starts, not really having any idea what he's going to say but knowing he's ruined any possibility for her and Zak.

"I liked her, she seemed pretty nice. And good for you," Zak adds. "I never thought I'd see my by-the-book big brother get kicked out of a club and Chalmer's at that for crying out loud! People frak in the bathroom there all the time, just not on the dance floor," he teases.

"You saw us?" Lee drops his head in his hand, already pounding with the depth of his betrayal. "Oh, gods you saw us," he exhales the words, as he considers further. "Why didn't you say anything?" he redirects.

Zak laughs again. "I didn't really think you'd want the distraction. You should've seen Rachel's face!" Zak continues, still laughing aloud. "I don't think she ever believed me before when I told her you could let loose like anybody else."

"That must've been something," Lee adds lamely.

"Hey listen, are you guys coming up for air soon? A bunch of us are going out tonight, nothing strenuous because class starts tomorrow, but we wanted to know if you guys want to come."

"Tonight?" Lee questions and turns to look at Kara. She nods, spatula still in hand, eyes wide and wounded. _Oh frak. _He has to look away. "That, that sounds good," he stutters. "We'll give you a call in a little bit."

"OK, I'll talk to you then," Zak signs off.

"Bye Zak," Lee speaks softly, peers back at Kara, and closes the phone.

She licks her lips and drops her gaze, going back in the kitchen to busy herself with breakfast. Lee swallows, then stands and trails after her. He pulls out a chair at the small square table, pushing aside bills and ready-to-eat food like energy bars and fruit to steady his elbows on its surface. He reconsiders the lack of space and organization, and he piles the bills together, puts all the bananas and grapes to one side, and then shifts the processed foods into another corner. He speaks when he can no longer avoid it.

"We had a deal, Zak and me," Lee begins quietly, repositioning the fruit again. "He liked a girl that had a crush on me. He was barely fifteen. He hadn't grown into himself at all. It was the most self conscious he's ever been. I didn't feel one way or the other about the girl, but Zak and I made a pact that day, never to go after the same woman. He never broke it," Lee finishes in a whisper, his eyes falling on the table.

"Neither did you," Kara insists, her voice still directed away from him.

Lee shakes his head, voice rising in frustration. "Kara, don't you understand what I'm saying? Even if he fell in love with you tomorrow, he'd never make a move. He'll think he's honoring the promise we made to each other, when I'm the one who broke it."

Kara stills completely. Lee hadn't even realized she'd been moving in any way at all until she isn't anymore. He sits up, unsure if he should move or in what direction, uncertain as to how hard it's hit her. He watches her shoulders move as she takes a deep breath, the tenseness of the moment before abruptly gone. "Zak doesn't even know me, and it wouldn't matter if he did because I'm not that girl anymore." A humorless laugh escapes her, "Gods there's so much I could never say to him," she sniffs, pauses to push her hair away from her face, "and he'd never even know the difference."

Lee blinks away from her, the truth in her words resonating through him, because it isn't just Kara's truth for Zak. It's Lee's truth too—how could Lee ever speak to Zak about a world that didn't include him? How could he ever burden someone he loved so much with the future he'd do anything to keep from unraveling? How can he reconnect with Zak when he can't share his biggest secrets with him?

"Maybe he won't know any different," Lee responds aloud, not really sure of his own words. That's why he purses his lip and has to remind her, "But you will."

Kara twists to look at him briefly, but then re-focuses on the food. Something is burnt. He hopes it's not the bacon. When she doesn't turn around again for several minutes, he leans back in the seat. She finishes making their meal. She fixes them each a plate, sets one in front of him, one in front of the chair beside him. But instead of sitting next to him, she adjusts his position in the chair and sits in his lap without warning, clasping her hands behind his neck. His arms automatically wrap around her, forgetting they shouldn't continue their intimacy with her body. Still, he doesn't let go when his mind catches up with his movements.

Lee crinkles his brow, unsure of where this is going, afraid to be wrong about her again and simply shamed to hold her so closely with Zak's voice still fresh in his ears. He watches while she bites her lip, adjusts her weight so she sits more heavily in his lap. The expression on her face is like any other time he's seen her trying to bluff her way through a bad hand.

"Do you think this is real, Lee?" Kara finally says. "Do you think we're really here together, in the past before we ever met?"

He clears his throat, contemplates both her question and her features, which are set in a mockery of her usual bravado. He's still trying to figure it all out when he shakes his head. "To be honest, I haven't thought about it very much." He searches Kara's eyes, then continues when she doesn't speak again. "I woke up at my mom's, and, once I realized Zak was alive, I couldn't think about anything else. And then I saw you, and I didn't think at all," he concludes, jaw tense and gaze down as what he's done to Zak, what he can't ever undo, hits him again. Regardless of who he and Kara are now, Zak should have had the choice to figure that out on his own. Maybe he and Kara would've found a way to make it work if they'd had half a chance. With intent, he loosens his grip on her waist. He tries, but he can't make himself let go.

With a hand under his chin, Kara forcefully pulls until they're eye to eye again. He's captured by the gaze that meets his. He's struck by how earnestly she's searching within him. "I've thought about it a lot," Kara tells him. "When I left you and Zak yesterday, and then all through the night. I couldn't sleep because I spent the whole night thinking about it."

His brow furrows even more, as he's still trying to catch up on both conversations they're having. He clears his throat and has to blink away, trying to direct his full attention to her words, trying to ignore her weight, so warm in his lap, trying to ignore her eyes. Gods, but her eyes have never lied to him before, not when he's really looked. "So what did you come up with?" Lee encourages, hoping for a distraction.

She stays quiet a moment, and he's afraid he's going to have to look back up at her before she'll answer. He's worried right up until she haltingly says, "I thought at first it had to be some sort of cylon simulator. One minute we're cylon prisoners and the next we're in the past, and we haven't made any mistakes that matter yet." She purses her lips, and he realizes he's been watching them. "And we're together." He looks to the ground but gets distracted by her legs. "But this is too real for a simulator—the music in Chalmer's, the frakking burnt omelet," he sees her gesture to the table from the corner of his eye, and he laughs. Thank goodness it isn't the bacon. "Then there's you." Her thumb slides along his jaw almost skittishly. He blinks back up to her gaze immediately.

The nervousness of her gesture makes him reach out his hand to grab hers, to still those fingers that never shake in the cockpit. She clears her throat. Her voice remains even when she speaks again, "I can't think of a single reason cylons would put us here on purpose, though, and I can't think of a way they'd be able to do it to us either."

Kara watches him like she expects him to answer the questions she hasn't quite asked. He rubs his thumb across her knuckles, and can't keep himself from wondering how many times Zak had held her hand just like this. He squeezes his eyes shut. "There are theories about time travel," Lee slowly recollects, distracted by the feel of her body against his. "They used to think that if a person could travel at the speed of light then he could appear in another part of the universe, not having aged a day, while time passed for everyone else."

Kara nods. "Right, I remember reading that at the academy. The theory was proven wrong by the use of first FTL drive. And even if it hadn't been, it would only work for going forward through time, not backward."

"Yeah," Lee argues, "but the theory could only be confirmed as incorrect up to a point." He gets a whiff of the bacon and inhales deeply, filling his nose and mouth with the scent. Gods it smells good. His fingers itch to grab a piece, or maybe it's his whole body, itching to get up and move away from this conversation they're not quite having.

"What do you mean?" She shifts her weight on his thighs. Her legs, bare and so smooth, slide against his legs while she rebalances.

Automatically, he grabs her thigh to help stabilize her. The firm muscle over soft skin feels so good, he opens up his fingers without thinking, starts stroking just below the cuff of her shorts. He blinks, trying to concentrate on her direct question rather than the wiggling temptation in his lap or the fried enticement behind her. He clears his throat. And talks fast. "Some scientists working in an outpost past the outer colonies discovered that while FTL drives were active, aging seemed to occur differently somehow. It was very cutting edge stuff at the end of the worlds. Gaeta told me about it one day after a CIC shift. They think that the FTL drives may push the ships into subspace."

Kara interrupts confidently, "And a nuclear blast in subspace could cause a rip in space-time." Lee tilts his head and smiles, surprised. Kara rolls her eyes. "Gaeta told that to everyone. I guess it's an interesting theory, and I even understand where the nuclear bomb comes in if the Admiral thought we were going to be kept as cylon prisoners," she wiggles in his lap as she gestures, and he holds her hip tighter to try to still her. "But why the frak would we have been in subspace on the planet, and if we did travel back in time, then why would we come to here and now?"

"We were in a space ship," he reminds her, trying to focus on his words, knowing she honestly wants his opinion. "Maybe the cylons revved up the FTL on the planet. It's been done before. It just takes a hell of a lot more fuel, and it's a lot more dangerous to calculate correctly because of the gravity. But as to why we ended up here and now…" He shrugs and takes a deep breath, the scent of the bacon acutely filling his senses once more. He peeks behind her, chancing a look at it. "I don't know." It's probably getting cold.

Kara turns and grabs a piece of the meat, stuffs it in his mouth. He laughs at his obviousness and grabs the end of the strip, biting off a piece and taking the rest in hand. The full, greasy flavor fills his mouth better than the Fleet portions ever did.

"Better?" She raises an eyebrow.

He grins back at her while he chews. "Somewhat," he speaks around the mouthful and dares to squeeze her thigh.

She smirks at him briefly, but her look of humor quickly fades. Lee chomps and swallows, then waits for her to speak. "I don't believe the cylons are capable of sending us back here on purpose," Kara confides, her tone conveying the weight she's given the topic. She breathes out through her mouth, licks her lips twice. "I think it was a gift from the gods," she whispers.

Lee looks away. With eyes low, he vaguely feels behind her to set the rest of the bacon back down. He clears his throat as another stalling technique. What can he say to that? If the gods gave her another opportunity with Zak, then he's just squandered it for her.

"Lee," Kara exhales impatiently, her tone forcing his eyes to hers. "Lee, what I'm trying to say is…" She furrows her brow, switching focus between his eyes like what she wants to say is written there. "Lee, if I've got a second chance, then I'm exactly where I want to be right now."

He stares at her, her words and actions this morning cycling through his head as they finally come full circle, finally merge to create meaning. After a long moment, Kara peers down and away from his gaze, unable to hold under his gaping. "You know it's OK if you don't feel the same," she ventures, her words breaking the spell.

"What about, what about Zak?" Lee asks, trying not to let himself think too far ahead yet. It wasn't just Zak he had to think about, but Sam and Dee, too. But then if he and Kara have never met them, do they owe either one of them anything? His heart speeds up in his chest. Gods could he do this? Could he have this?

"I'll always love him, Lee. But I…" She locks her jaw. "I knew last night, it's not the same at all. So you really didn't break any promises to Zak," she adds before he can get a word in. "I already knew I couldn't choose him again."

Lee shakes his head and worries the wound. "If this is because of his accident—"

"It's not," Kara sharply interrupts, her eyes now solidly meeting his. And then she waits.

_Are we just talking about fighting and frakking again, Kara?_ He wants to know but doesn't voice the question this time. Instead he shakes his head to free the trappings of the thought. Whatever it is, it'll have to be enough. Her eyes stay open to watch his as he kisses her softly, his mouth closed, almost timid. He breaks away after the brief contact, trying not to reveal his tells.

"Lee?" Kara calls to him—a question, not a demand. She checks his face for a clue. She gasps a short breath, almost a sob, at whatever she finds, but she doesn't give him time to answer her. Roughly, Kara pulls him to her again, her kiss desperate. For once, she seems to need words.

He shifts, and she follows. He opens his mouth to speak, and she fills it so quickly he knows she's afraid. She loosens his tongue with her own needy one, "I've always wanted you," he tells her then, lips still linked with hers, courage still linked with hers, "even when you were Zak's," he whispers a secret he's never spoken aloud.

"I wanted you then, too," she confides back. He breaks from her lips to look at her, to wager the truth of her words. But he knows, anyway, before he sees the shame in her eyes, that her gaze is a reflection of his own. With a fist in her hair, he yanks her mouth to his again. She bites his lip, the pleasure as sharp as the sting. He bites her back. She moans his name into his mouth as their blood mingles. The mixture tastes like absolution.

**Chapter 4 Spinning Lachesis**

His eyes stay on the bed while he listens to Kara start up the shower. He tries not to shift in his seat by the dresser, wondering if she's reached for the soap yet. He braces himself to wait for the slosh and splash pattern that indicate she's probably washing her hair.

Lee knows she'll use the flowery shampoo and separate conditioner, a girly thing for Kara to do, but then she'd always let herself be more girly when no one was looking, as if it were shameful to like a sweet scent in her hair. Today Kara's secret will buy him more time.

He turns away from the sheets they'd tangled in all afternoon, would've tangled in all day if Zak hadn't called again. Lee walks to the living room, feeling every scratch, bite, and bruise Kara marked into his skin. He rubs the tooth marks on his chest; they seem deeper than the rest. He picks up his phone and heads for the kitchen where his call won't carry to Kara's ears. He dials automatically, surprised somewhere deep inside himself that he still knows the number by heart. He waits for an answer while he listens to Kara start to hum. He is intent on Kara's voice, on the subtle lilting of the higher notes and the fullness of the lower ones, so he is startled by the husky alto that suddenly sounds through the phone.

"I'm surprised to hear from you after last time." The woman in his ear can't be bothered with the niceties of a normal greeting.

"I need to see you." Apparently neither can he.

"Tomorrow, come early," she says hurriedly, and a lower voice, a man, demands her attention on the other end of the line.

"I can't be there before 0900," he warns, but isn't sure if she's heard him, the line is silent. He'd speak again to check if she's still there, but the shower stops. He hangs up the phone, careful to put it back in place by the door before venturing toward the bathroom. He smiles at Kara as she exits in a fluffy blue towel, reminding himself to keep his mouth shut for now, whatever the consequences are for tomorrow.

B

S

G

"Lee, Kara! Over here!" Zak's voice carries across Mac's Diner, too impatient to wait for their eyes to fall on him. Kara smiles at his buoyancy, at his vibrancy, his life.

Lee immediately sets toward his brother, pulling Kara with him by their joined hands. She yanks on them urgently, too sore to move that quickly. Lee glances back at her. His look of concern shifts quickly to a smirk. She rolls her eyes away from him, noting the green vinyl upholstery of the seats for the first time. She thinks they'd been blue the last time she'd been here. While Lee offers a quick hello to Zak and Rachel and three of their friends from last night, Kara vaguely wonders when the restaurant's owner will seek the new hue.

Kara slides into the large semi-circular booth first, gingerly sidling up to Rachel, who is cuddling Zak. She offers them a smile. When she peers back at Lee scooting in beside her, he's biting his lip, brow already furrowed with distress. She smiles at him, grabs his hand under the table, not really knowing how to reassure him in the small gestures he prefers. He doesn't smile back, but the warm squeeze and hot look he returns is better.

"I didn't get to introduce you to anyone last night," Zak begins, and when Kara points her gaze in his direction, the first thing she sees is his barely controlled grin. "This is Mark," Zak points to the blond boy opposite Lee. "Allison." The girl with the perky nose waves. "And Greg," Zak ends introductions with the nerdy-looking kid beside him. "Everybody this is my brother, Lieutenant Lee Adama, and Lieutenant Kara Thrace: Apollo and Starbuck," Zak finishes proudly.

"It's always good to meet more of Zak's friends," Lee the diplomat nods and answers for both he and Kara.

"How's it going?" Kara chimes in just to be contrary.

"Zak says you guys are viper pilots," Mark starts in, and Kara is surprised to remember she used to enjoy that kind of hero worship, that unabashed awe without the honest gratitude that grounds you in the reality of what you do.

Kara looks to Lee only to find him looking back at her, the tilt of his head suggesting he'd rather she field the question. She clears her throat. "Yeah," Kara nods and looks across the table, "we both took the option for flight school and officer candidate school while we were still undergrads."

"I didn't know they still did that." Allison gives them a skeptical glance. "What's the need to rush people through to lieutenant at such a young age in a post-armistice world?"

Kara narrows her eyes at the slight. "Rushed through? Do you have any idea what it takes to option for either, Cadet?" Kara jerks her head toward Lee. "Lieutenant Adama was in the top five percent of his class in officer candidate school, and that was the top five percent of everybody, not just those who qualified for the early admission. He'll make Admiral one day because he's that damn good. The early admission isn't for everybody, that much is obvious," Kara lets her gaze drop down the cadet's front and back up, "but just because you can't hack it little girl, doesn't mean that nobody can."

In the uncomfortable silence that follows Kara's reprimand, the other cadets cough slightly and clear their throats, but Kara keeps her hardest stare on their fellow, frightened into submission in front of her, until Lee pulls on the hand still entwined with his, bringing her attention to the waitress at the head of the table. "Right," Kara blinks. "I'll take a cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate milkshake."

Lee exhales on a chuckle. "Can't argue with that. I'll have the same. Oh, but with bacon on the cheeseburger, please." Kara watches him smile at the server with the ugly pink apron that boasts Mac's Diner has the _Best Burgers in Town_, already charming the feathers Kara's ruffled. "So I'll make Admiral, will I?" Lee whispers directly into her ear while the waitress takes the rest of the party's orders.

"Hey," Kara shrugs, keeping the close proximity that he's initiated to keep their conversation private. "It's not like you've got far to go, Commander." Since she's already close, she nudges his cheek just a little with her jaw, just enough to feel the rasp of his unshaven face against her smooth skin. He rubs her right back.

"I'm just another lieutenant, now. Who knows what the future might bring this time?"

She chuckles. "Are you kidding, Lee? Early admission to both officer candidate school and flight school and then War College less than a month after graduation? They've been shaping you for command since your first semester at the Academy."

He stiffens, and his breathing changes at her words. He lets go of her hand. She backs away to find the root of the problem, but by the time she can see his eyes, he's shielded them. "Lee?" she asks, wishing she could've seen his eyes while she spoke. He gives her a tight smile, meant to reassure, but working towards everything except comfort. "Lee?" she demands this time.

"Hmm?" Lee furrows his brow like he doesn't know why she's questioning him. Before he's forced to give her an answer, Rachel brings them back into the conversation with what she obviously believes to be a peacemaking subject after her fellow cadet's faux pas:

"So how did you and Lee meet, Kara?" Rachel clinks her silverware together when she asks.

Kara blinks, her breath nearly stopped by the abrupt jump from her present to her past. She shifts her upper body to face Rachel, pulling her elbows on top of the table, stalling as she recalls: the mini-park near Folstein Hall, Lee directly from a meeting where he'd served as an aide for then-Commander Nagala at Fleet Headquarters, still in dress blues, hair perfectly combed, walk perfectly crisp, creases only permitted where appropriate. She and Zak had been playing Frisbee, sweaty and dirty from their near violent competition. Zak had egged her on deliberately, trying to get out all her nervousness at the idea of meeting a member of Zak's family. Zak… Kara had loved him for it later, but when spit-and-polish Lieutenant Lee Adama walked over to her for the first time and held out his hand, she'd been horrified. Kara is nearly as tongue-tied at Rachel's question as she had been in that moment nearly six years ago.

"She hit me in the head with a Frisbee," Lee speaks up, takes the focus from Kara as much by the affection of his words as their actual content.

"What? You mean on purpose?" Zak responds quizzically, the expression achingly familiar on his ever-curious face.

"Oh yes, definitely on purpose," Lee's voice confirms behind her shoulder.

"Why did you throw it at him?" Rachel inquires, ears turning as red as they had the day before when she'd been holding back a laugh.

Kara licks her lips, her own grin startling her as the development in the conversation finally registers and evokes a better memory—this one more Lee than Zak—and occurring a bare moment after that first uncomfortable handshake: Zak had invited Lee into their game, but Lee refused to take his jacket off and play. She'd been sure the contrast between them had been too great, that he'd hated her on sight, what with her hair no doubt matted and greasy, sweat dripping from her forehead all the way down, and mud and grass covering her from end to end. So while spit-and-polish Lieutenant Lee Adama watched Zak gather their blanket and bag, Kara lobbed the Frisbee at his head. Her aim had been true despite her anger and hurt; the disc thwacked Lee's temple and bounced to the ground, unrepentant at his feet. When Lee looked up at her, it was as if that Frisbee's jolt had knocked his 'good lieutenant' mask out of place, just enough for her to catch a peek at the real Lee. The look he gave her somehow forged the first connection they ever had. She'd never known what he found in her returned gaze, but it made him smirk, made him unbutton his way to his tanks, grab the disc, and throw it right back at her head. She barely caught it, and he never let up on her since.

"I threw the Frisbee at his head," Kara turns around to look at Lee but addresses her inquisitors, "because he was being an asshole." She pokes him in the chest. "You hit me back," she accuses, the curling of her lips now ridiculously beyond her control.

Lee grins back. "Eventually." He grabs her thrusting fingers, pulls her hand to his lap in a gesture too gentle for them but possessive enough not to matter. "You were vicious," he charges, but his assertion contradicts the tender way she lets him brush the pad of his thumb over her knuckles, "and you never let up. It was hard to get in a good shot when you wouldn't let your guard down." He follows this complement to her vigilance by releasing his grip, letting her hand go like he didn't just treat her like a girl, like _his_ girl.

Lee's eyes on her face are as soft as his hands were on her fingers. Kara swallows and looks away, not waiting for them to change. She focuses on the others at the table, who start speaking of classes assigned and books yet to buy. If she had her frakking chocolate milkshake she would have sipped it, but instead she considers how best to enter the cadets' conversation, wondering if she even remembers how to discuss such things. Then Rachel leans toward Zak, kisses his cheek, and tugs on Kara's arm.

"Ladies' room." Rachel jerks her head to the back of the restaurant, part invitation, part demand.

Beside her, Lee immediately moves to follow Rachel's decree, but Kara remains in the way for a beat longer. She'd forgotten that women ran to the restroom in pairs, that she had done this, long ago. It was frakkin' bizarre if you thought about it. Finally, Kara slides from the booth without a word, catching Lee's glance as she walks away from the table. She can tell he caught her delay. There is no amusement on his face, only empathy.

Kara trails behind Rachel, absently noting that prissy-nosed Allison hadn't been invited.

Rachel waits to talk until she's holding the ladies' room door open for Kara behind her. "Whoever taught Allison to speak should be shot!" Kara smirks at Rachel's reflection as it becomes visible in the long mirror spanning the wall above the ladies' room's three sinks. "Okay maybe not shot," Rachel amends, "just locked in a room with her for three days straight."

Kara leans against one of the small sink bowls, the far left one with the constant drip, facing Zak's girlfriend as she reapplies makeup with some secret invisible-until-in-use supply. "The Quorum of Twelve would have your ass for even suggesting that kind of abject torture."

Rachel pauses the motion of her blush brush. "Dammit you're right. I guess he will have to be shot."

Kara chuffs, turning back to the mirror. She glances between her obviously thrown-together-at-the-last-minute outfit and Rachel's more elegant appearance. _Frak!_ Kara curses to herself. The T-shirt had seemed like a good idea back at the apartment: easy on for now and easy off later, but the bland gray of the _I Got S.M.A.K.E.D. at Aerlon Station_ tee does nothing for her. She rotates, still looking at her reflection. At least she wore shorts—Lee's never said as much, but he loves her ass. Kara sighs, determinedly shifting away from the mirror. Why the frak does she even care? The clothes fit, they're even clean, but the image of Lee comes to mind, as polished as she is frumpy, and she's irritated at herself for caring about the difference.

"I was so glad to see you stick it to her," Rachel starts again while Kara completes her private condemnation. "She's been driving me crazy since Mark took up with her last semester."

"If you dislike her so much, then why put up with her crap?" Kara quizzes while Rachel contorts her eyelashes.

Rachel shrugs. "Don't really have a choice. Like I said, she's Mark's girlfriend." Rachel quickly glances to Kara and back to her own reflection. "And I've known Mark since we were thirteen. Hopefully he'll dump her soon, and we can all relax around him again."

Kara bites the tip of her thumb. "You know sometimes those kinds of girlfriends, like Allison, stick around. Sometimes it isn't enough to just ignore her presence. You have to learn to live with them, confront them, make some sort of compromise."

"Come on. You just saw her in action." The cadet gestures towards the dining room. "Do you honestly think there's any way to compromise with the Queen of Sheba out there?"

"I'm just saying sometimes there isn't much of a choice. There are some times you have to either find a way to deal with that kind of crap or lose a friend." Kara walks to the opposite side of the room, her steps almost in time with the drip of the sink, pretending interest in the graffiti on the partition separating the washing area from the first stall. She can feel Rachel's eyes on her, feel them in the other woman's stillness, almost see them in her own peripheral vision. The small splashes of water on porcelain become louder in the silence. Finally a compact clicks, and Kara relaxes.

"Don't take this the wrong way," the cadet begins, and Kara steels herself for an insult, "but Allison always used to remind me of Lieutenant Adama."

"Lee?" Kara is startled into facing Rachel's way again. "Why?"

Rachel shrugs, intent on her own reflection as she applies a deep red shade to her lips, and though the motion seems casual, Kara can tell she is making an effort to tread lightly. "He always used to seem so anal, so preachy." She rubs her lips together. "Know-it-all, you know?"

Kara raises her eyebrows and one side of her mouth. "Well, Lee is all of those things."

Rachel reaches for a paper towel, blots. "I guess after meeting you, seeing the two of you together, he seems like he's more than just that, but before, I didn't see that."

Kara washes her hands at the far left sink, mostly just because it's there and already dripping anyway. The dribble continues even after she twists both knobs as far off as she can. She shakes the excess water from her hands, reaches past Rachel to get a paper towel for herself, uses it, balls it up and holds it, squeezing it in an imitation of her daily hand-strengthening exercises. "Lee can sneak up on you," Kara finally says. "You can't just see all of him by looking at him dead on."

Rachel pivots, her back now reflecting in the mirror. "Have you been together long? You and Lee Adama?" Rachel says his first name with the same intonation she'd given his rank. "You said how you met, but not when," she digs, and abruptly, Kara can see Zak's influence in Rachel's line of questioning.

"Umm." The crease forms between Kara's eyebrows as she prepares a lie. "Actually…" Kara trails off, faltering with the knowledge that this answer will get back to Zak. She looks Rachel in the eye. The crinkle on her brow disappears. "The thing is Lee and I have known each other for a while. We just have really bad timing."

Rachel nods, eases her eyes away, then puts her makeup back into her various secret compartments. When she glances back up, she jerks her chin and directs her eyes to Kara's neck and a bruise shaped like Lee's mouth. "So is that the mark of better timing?"

Kara clears her throat, the sound morphing into a laugh. She tosses the wadded paper towel into the open trash. She shrugs at Rachel, afraid to give her a real answer, afraid to put a name to this thing that she and Lee have started. "That's nothing, you should see Lee's." Her eyebrows wiggle at the innuendo.

Smirking back, Rachel moves in front of Kara to open the door for them both again. "Looks like the food's here," she observes when they get closer to their booth.

The conversation at the table is still muffled from Kara's position, but the look on Lee's face, the layers in his expression are obvious to her. And Kara sees it for what it is, the mask of a good soldier… and a faithful commander. Kara stops to watch the farce, unaware of anything but the man sitting at the end of the booth, features set to face a mission he hasn't shared with her. It is only in this moment that Kara realizes just how much Lee is like his father, ready to face any obstacle for his people: to live for them, to die for them—to lie to them. Commander Lee Adama is hiding information from his troops, and as Kara watches Lee, she is chagrined to realize that Lee still counts her in that number.


	3. Part 3

See first installment for headers and disclaimer.

**Chapter 5 Hard Six**

Behind the wheel, Lee shifts through morning traffic. As the first day of classes, it's more hectic than usual: freshmen unaccustomed to the broad campus and upperclassmen rushing the few available parking spots clash with the last-minute construction that always plagues the end of summer. Kara watches the mess outside the passenger window. Every now and again she feels Lee's gaze on her before he flicks his eyes back to the road.

Flipping her head to study his profile, Kara prepares herself to hear a lie. "So what are you doing today?"

Lee clears his throat, throws her a quick glance and then gives the traffic more attention than its due. He shrugs. "Thought I'd look up a couple friends here and at Fleet Headquarters. Keep trying to get a hold of my Dad."

She is momentarily distracted by mention of the eldest Adama. "You've been trying to get in touch with him then?"

"Of course," Lee responds, "just because we came back to this point in time doesn't mean I have the same problems with him as before. Dad never trusted the cylons to honor the Armistice after the first war. Even if he doesn't believe everything, he's still our best bet." Lee inches the truck forward, halting just shy of the green expanse surrounding Garret Hall. She looks out the windshield to the red brick building that is her destination. She could walk easily from here. Lee exhales heavily, catching her attention. "Zak told me he was in that nebula over Geminon." Lee elaborates, "War games."

"The Clusterfrak?" Her brow furrows.

He grins. "Yeah."

She doesn't share his humor. "It could be weeks, even months."

He sighs and looks away. "I know."

Back outside the window, the people hustle as busily and single-mindedly as ants. The uniforms that the vast majority of them wear only enhance the perception. Kara touches her hand to the glass, a mockery of protection to one who knows the future that lay ahead. "What the hell do we do, Lee?" She shakes her head. "The end of the world is coming, and we're the only ones that know."

"We're going to stop it from happening." But for a small quiver, his words are almost matter-of-fact.

Her knuckles bend, scrapping her fingernails down the smooth surface of the glass. "How?"

"I'm working on it," Lee says between the quiet drumming of his fingers on the steering wheel.

She turns back to him. "You are?"

He clears his throat again. "Maybe we should talk about this later tonight."

"Maybe we should talk about this now," she counters right away. "Where are you really going today, Lee?" she accuses when he doesn't speak.

He doesn't look at her, just gives all his attention to the vehicles around him while he finagles into a freshly vacated spot in the white zone in front of a dilapidated humanities building. He jerks the car into park, his anger showing through. The display gets Kara's blood moving, ready for his temper, choosing it over his acquiescence.

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"Just the truth, Commander. Or is that too frakking unfamiliar anymore?"

"Kara—"

"No, I don't fraking think so. You can either be my commander or be my friend. You can't be both, not anymore." Her heart stops at her own ultimatum. She hadn't realized she would speak it until it was already out.

He locks his jaw as if he's really thinking about it, and Kara's breath shudders as she readies to back down.

"I'm going to Fleet Headquarters to talk to an old friend of my father's. She offered me a position there before War College came through. I'm going to tell her I've decided to take it."

"What? Why?"

"I can make better connections at Headquarters, have the ear of the right people."

"Headquarters is greedy. Once they sink their claws into you, they won't let you go; you'll lose space. If I recall correctly, and I do, that's what made you say 'no' in the first place."

"You're going to be late to class."

"Frak that!" She gestures toward the red brick. "You can't do this, Lee. If you turn down War College once—"

"Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I haven't thought this through? I wasn't offered a position at Headquarters again after this. My destiny was set in War College, and at the time I was glad for it, but now…"

"Well, duh, Lee. Of course they wanted to put their boy wonder in space after you re-earned your call-sign." She ignores the glare he gives her at the mention of the long-ago incident above Scorpia. "They marked you for command a long time ago."

"I can climb the ranks just as easily planetside—"

"Who are you kidding, Lee? This is about flying."

"I gave up flying a year and a half ago!" he hollers. "I had to. _I _didn't have a choice," he continues, voice hoarse with an unspoken accusation: _She_ gave it up willingly. "I don't have a choice now either." He backs away from the fighting potential of his insinuation. "At least this time I'll have access to simulators and the occasional atmospheric flight," he finishes, defeated.

"Lee…" She shakes her head, already mourning for his loss…for the loss of him. "No," she reiterates while trying to think of a way to sway him.

"I've already made up my mind Kara. It's the only way. We're talking about the end of the world here. It's not so big a sacrifice for Zak's life, and my mother's life, and the lives of all those people out there."

"It will kill you, Lee."

"It hasn't yet."

"Maybe we could—"

"No," he interrupts her, his single word carrying more certainty than the rest of her argument.

She sniffs, shoots her gaze out the window to hide her eyes from his. Once she knows she won't horribly embarrass herself by crying or something, she yanks her pen and notebook from the dash. She slides the pen into the spirals, trying to walk out on this conversation but not able to make herself go.

"I still can't believe that's all you take to the first day of class," Lee tries to insert a bit of levity.

"I can't believe you're trying to make a joke when you're about to throw your life away." Her eyes are still on the notebook, but she can only see the future he has laid out for himself: cold, calculated, guarded. It is not a life she wants for Lee.

"I'm not throwing my life away." His voice is hard, controlled in the face of her persistence.

She chuffs without looking at him, while he proves her point without ever knowing her concern.

"I'm gaining a life, Kara," he continues, heedless of the interruption, "the life we were all promised that the cylons stole away. I'm not abandoning any hopes and dreams. I'm retaking them—for all of us. I want my children to walk the halls of the Delphi Museum. I want to make love on the beaches of Tauron. I want to take the day cruise through the canals of the Old City on Caprica. I want to tour every colony, even walk through the Hall of Grief on Sagittaron. I want to fulfill the promise that the gods made to us the day our ancestors left Kobol: I want to find peace in the knowledge that 'all of this has happened before…'"

"'And all of this will happen again,'" she finishes when he falters. She looks at him, then, at the face that's too young to be his and the shoulders not broad enough for the burden of twelve colonies. "What if the promise was never meant to give us peace, Lee? What if it was a warning?"

He leans back into his seat. She watches him grasp the steering wheel with both hands while he contemplates her question. "Then maybe I can find a way to make a few more souls survive with us."

Kara shuts her eyes, sniffs one more time, the better to force her features into submission. When she looks at Lee again, she reaches for him, seeks the hand nearest to her, grabs it, curls her fingers into the steering wheel on top of his. "Well, in that case, you're going to need me, Apollo." She licks her lips, gives her best Starbuck grin. "I mean, I am the best wingman you've ever had."

He lifts his other hand to cover hers. "I've never trusted anyone else to watch my six," he confesses with such tangible confidence that her breath stops to take in the responsibility.

She keeps the smile on her face, stifling any grief and uncertainty. "Damn straight." Kara glances to her hand, surrounded by Lee's, squeezes, and feels the returning pressure. "I'm with you, Lee," she chooses him. "Whatever comes next."

**Chapter 6 Shadow Box or Shadow Boxer**

Colonel Moira 'Reaper' Jacobs' office is only on the third floor, but Lee still opts for the elevator so he'll keep an even breath when he boxes with fate. The lift is crowded, as always, but then Fleet Headquarters constantly has people moving in and out and about to take and make new orders. Lee politely pushes to the front of the car in his Class B uniform. If he'd known he would have a confrontation with Starbuck this morning, Lee would have simply worn the uniform when they left the apartment. If he hadn't had to go back and change, he might have made it in before 0830. As it is, it's 0910, and he doesn't know if he'll be considered late.

The elevator dings, and Lee exits as the doors open. He takes the once familiar path to Yellow Corridor, his visitor's pass and military identification only seeing him so far.

"Can I help you, sir?" The private at the check-in desk takes notice of him almost immediately.

"Lt. Lee Adama to see Colonel Jacobs." Lee nods to the enlisted man: Johnson according to his uniform. "She's expecting me," Lee adds.

Private Johnson glances at the clipboard in front of him, turns the first page over, then the next. He bobs his chin. "Yes, sir, if you could just sign-in." He angles the sheet towards Lee.

Lee accepts the clipboard and writes his name. His pen falters only slightly when he lists his rank. When he hands the materials back to the private, Lee considers an old criticism of his father's: The civilian government went back to fully computerized systems for everything from daily requisition sheets to classified government projects shortly after the First Cylon War ended, but the military still maintained protocols implemented during the war up through the end of the worlds.

Lee is still considering how he might utilize this precaution while the private directs him towards an office it seems he has always known the location of.

Reaper's secretary, Gunnery Sergeant Goodwin, who lost his legs in a shipboard accident ten years before, greets him with the nostalgia Lee has long come to expect from soldiers once under his father's command. "Lt. Lee Adama, sir," Goodwin grins while he utters the designation, no doubt remembering Lee in short pants all the while. Gunny keeps his seat due to his condition.

"How have you been, Gunny?" Lee walks over to shake his hand.

"Can't complain, sir." Gunny returns the grip. "Casey and the kids are doing great. In fact, Daniel started at the Academy just this morning."

"Is that right?" Quickly doing the math in his head, Lee wonders if Daniel made it off Picon before the nukes struck the first time through. _It hasn't happened yet_. He shakes his head to remind himself. "So, uh…" Lee clears his throat to help himself refocus. "So I guess this means in another few years you'll wind up saluting him?"

Gunny's grin just gets wider. "I'd salute him now. He's amazing—a math whiz," Goodwin elaborates, "he's trying to decide whether to go into physics or engineering."

"That's impressive." Eyebrows raised, Lee considers, "Both fields are growing exponentially every year. The Fleet will definitely want to make him a lifer."

"That they will." Gunny points to the door leading to the inner office. "The Colonel's in a telephone conference right now, but she should be out any minute if you'd like to take a seat."

Before Lee can decline the offer, the phone on Gunny's desk rings. Lee steps away to avoid the appearance of overhearing the conversation. With Gunny occupied, Lee studies the pictures on the wall separating the outer office from Colonel Jacobs' inner domain. As always, his eyes are drawn to the photo of Reaper posed in front of a Mark II with a young Bill Adama. Both were just lieutenants then, rushed out of Flight School to fight the escalating Cylon War. One of Reaper's arms is slung over Bill Adama's shoulders, the other holds her helmet in the crook of her elbow; her wild hair, dark with sweat, leaves little doubt that it had just been removed. His father's own helmet is nowhere to be seen, but according to his hairstyle, it is also nearby. Bill Adama puffs on a cigar while he and Reaper, then his wingman, pose jovially for an unknown cameraman. As a teenager, the stance of intimate laughter made Lee think they'd been having an affair. The first time Lee flew with Starbuck, he knew he'd been wrong.

"You can go in now, sir." Gunny brings Lee's attention back to his task.

Lee nods to the NCO, walks to the inner office, opens the door, and then immediately shuts it behind him.

Reaper—no Colonel Jacobs he should say—speaks before he can face her, "Lt. Adama!" She stands to greet him. She's still behind her desk when Lee salutes her.

"Colonel Jacobs, sir."

She returns the gesture easily, yet her brow furrows when she looks him over. The strictness of his posture has quickly changed the tone of the meeting, just as Lee had intended: This isn't a social call for him.

"Take a seat, Lieutenant." The sweep of her arm indicates the two chairs in front of her desk.

"Thank you, sir." Lee waits for Reaper to retake her own seat before checking the position of the chair behind him and settling into it. "I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice. I'm sorry to have interrupted your weekend with my call."

She shakes her head. "I'm always willing to receive a call from an Adama. The weekend was a little bit of bad timing because Roger's kids were in. The custody case is about to be heard," Reaper abbreviates the problems he remembers her struggling through. She and her husband never did find a judge to resolve the issue. Lee bites his tongue. And exhales.

He pushes the thought aside. "You presented me with an offer six weeks ago, sir."

"Yes," Reaper nods, "and if I recall, you not only turned me down flat, you told me rather scornfully that you didn't need your father's connections to make it anywhere."

Lee licks his upper lip. He hadn't remembered being quite that pompous. "My apologies, sir. I meant no disrespect to you or to your offer."

"Knock it off, Lee." She leans back in her seat, loosening the formality as she relaxes into the conversation. "Of course you did. You were pissed because you thought I was insinuating you couldn't make it on your own. And while I would've liked to give you a leg up just because you're Bill Adama's son, I also would've liked to have taken some credit for helping to mold the career of such an exemplary young officer. You've got a hell of a record—at the Academy and serving as an intern here. I imagine that's why they accepted you into War College for the coming session. Congratulations by the way."

"Thank you, sir. However—"

Her brows lift high on her forehead. "However?"

"I've decided not to take it." The words, when he says them, are calmer than he'd imaged they would be.

Reaper remains silent for several long and uncomfortable seconds. "I hope to gods you haven't turned them down, yet, Lee, because if you have—"

"I have," he interrupts.

"What the hell are you thinking?" She jumps up as she jumps on him. The poise and decorum of a senior officer of the Fleet from loosened to thrown out entirely in nothing flat, as Reaper addresses him—not as the lieutenant that now sits in front of her—but as the boy he once was. "Gods please tell me you did not turn down War College to take a position at Headquarters?" She starts pacing, to the window and back, seemingly already knowing his answer. "They'll never let you see the sun, let alone the inside of a viper! What am I going to say to your father?" Stopping to cover her eyes, she curses, "Frak, Hustler's going to kill me!"

"If the position you offered me is still open," Lee persists, breaking himself firmly in half by his own words—the part that loves to fly from the part that loves everything else in the world, "then I would be very interested in taking it."

"You know it's still open, Lee. You never would've turned down War College if you didn't know," she points out. He acknowledges her perception with a shrug of his shoulders. Reaper crosses behind her desk before addressing him again, her temper in hand. "For a young officer, War College is about building strategic skills. Headquarters, on the other hand, is about building political skills."

Lee nods. "I know. I know that this puts me on an entirely different track than I wanted to be on before. But recently, my goals have changed." He looks to his hands, open in his lap, while he understates the purpose behind his career change.

Slowly, Reaper lowers herself back into her executive chair, never taking her eyes off him. "You love to fly, Lee. I know you do, I've watched you."

"I do love to fly," Lee whispers, his eyes lose focus as his thoughts turn to aerobatics with Starbuck and those perfect, fleeting moments after the end of the world, gliding and soaring, rising above his daily CAG duties to become a part of something smaller, freer, with infinitely more possibilities. "I miss it."

"Then why do this?" Reaper latches onto Lee's admission before he realizes he voiced the thought.

"There are more important things than flying," he states, but pictures Starbuck piloting away from him as he speaks, becoming nothing more than afterburners on the horizon. He locks his jaw as he lets the image hold, lets the daydreamed-Starbuck fly away. "There are things that are more important to me," Lee clarifies.

"And from that vague answer, I suppose you want me to back off."

Lee smiles, more wryness than happiness. His eyes finally meet Reaper's again. "I appreciate that you want what's best for me, but I've found my own path, and I have to follow it."

Colonel Jacobs watches Lee for a moment, perhaps waiting for him to blink. When she receives no reaction, she draws back her chair slightly, pulls open the top drawer of her desk, and collects a stack of papers. She picks up a pen and fills out the forms while Lee watches. He wants to strain to look at them, but a year of command has taught him more patience than he ever believed he could possess. When she's finished, Reaper sets the pen aside. She picks up the stack like she's still weighing the decision. In the end, she offers it to Lee. He extends his arm to receive them.

"They're dated a week from today." Her words halt his hand mid-stretch.

"I won't change my mind, sir," Lee reassures her, hoping she'll change the date while the papers are still in her hands.

"Maybe not," one side of her mouth curls on the words, "but I'm giving you that chance."

His jaw locks. He directs his stare away from her, exhaling through his nose—once, a deep breath in, then out again.

"Lee," she commands his attention again, and he realizes that she waited while he calmed down: He hadn't thought himself so readable. "Every officer at Headquarters is under intense scrutiny all the time. Every mistake you make is magnified, every victory torn apart to nothing. Even if you don't reconsider your decision, you need to prepare yourself for that fact."

Lee purses his lips. "I understand living in a bubble more than you can imagine, sir." Reluctantly he accepts the pile of papers from Reaper. He places them in his lap, adjusts all the corners so they match.

"Maybe you can, Lee," she whispers, and when he looks up, her eyes are focused on his perfect corners, "but is that anyway to live?"

**Chapter 7 Shift**

Lee drives around automatically after the interview. He has missed driving, though he only notes that fact during his third pass of the Little Libran District where he used to live during his junior year at the academy. He is glad Kara has a stick shift rather than an automatic transmission, glad that his feet are moving with his hands. The motion is nothing like the pedals of a viper, but it keeps him occupied while he considers his destination.

In the back of his mind, perhaps he thought driving would be enough to calm him, but as he heads out toward the edge of town, he knows his capacity for denial is as intact as always. He can hear the roaring engines of the ships long before he can see the tower.

Lee shifts off-road to the side of the property east of the runways. He parks the truck in the tall grass near the razor-wire fence and the 'No Trespassing' signs. He climbs out, takes off his jacket, phone still in the front pocket, and tosses it in the cab. Then he climbs up on the hood of the truck and lies back against the windshield to watch the vipers.

He doesn't realize it, but his hands pull up with every take-off, feet shift with every landing. He focuses mostly on the afterburners as they head toward the horizon and shift upward into space—away from him.

B

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Kara hangs back after class, watching the other students vie for a moment of Major Patterson's time. Most of them beg for just a few more minutes in the simulators this week. Patterson eats it up; he always got off on that kind of power. He lets them plead, pretends to consider, and makes his counter-offer, which is usually either to see what the semester brings or to demand a favor for the boon granted. However, as Kara looks on, she notes that the Major is more fair than she remembered, getting the more desperate pilots more air time than the ones simply seeking to fulfill the assigned simulator hours required for budding Flight Instructors.

"And what can I do for you, Lt. Thrace?" Patterson doesn't even turn to look at her when the other students file out. Instead he starts to pack his briefcase, filled with the day's Pedagogical Theory notes.

Kara licks her bottom lip. "I wasn't sure you'd remember me, sir."

Patterson does grace her with a glance then. "After your persistence to get into the sims last semester?" He seems about to smile but stops himself. "Never." He turns back to his task. "So how many hours are you going to try to cheat me out of this semester, Thrace?"

She can see the edge of his face now—and she's sure that he's grinning. Kara realizes in a rush that Major Patterson liked her, maybe even had fun sparring with her. She tries to wrap her brain around this new theory. "None, sir." She smiles, feeling none of the dread that plagued her throughout her three classes this morning. "But I would like to earn hours in Viper Sims for me and a friend to fly together."

Major Patterson sets his briefcase to the side and swivels to face her, his expression as stiff as she's always expected from him. He squints as if calculating the possible angles of her request. Finally he asks, "What friend?"

Kara steps forward, in front of the first row of desks. "He just graduated. His name is Lt. Lee Adama. Apollo," she adds his call sign immediately. Hopefully its early use will stave off any questions or doubts of when and how he'd been gifted.

But Patterson pays no attention to Kara's use of the call sign. "Lt. Lee Adama?" he repeats, doubtful.

"Did you…know him?" She tilts her head, unsure of the meaning of his tone.

"He was only one of the considerations for valedictorian last month." Patterson's condescending words nearly make her cringe. "I'd heard he'd been accepted to War College." It is almost a question that he asks, and so she answers.

"He was accepted."

When nothing more is said, the Major continues, "Then why does he need hours in an academy sim if he's up for the big leagues?"

Kara looks away, the wrinkle forming in-between her eyes.

"Don't bother." Patterson holds up a hand and rolls his eyes before she can think up a lie. He grabs his briefcase, ready to walk away.

"Wait, sir, please." Kara's halted words stall the Major for a moment. "Lee decided…" she pauses, unwilling to betray Lee's confidence, "Lee is… Lee is my friend, and he needs this," Kara finishes simply, eyes locked on the Major. "I am willing to work for this, sir," she reiterates, not knowing what else to say.

Patterson leans against the high lecturing station to his left, eyes still small while he studies her. "I have a student in Flight School, a junior lieutenant. He's already on probation, and he's asked me for help. I don't have time to tutor him."

"In pedagogical theory?" she interrupts. Kara clears her throat at the Major's dirty look. "Sorry."

"He's one of the best ECOs I've seen," Patterson continues without further attention to her lapse of protocol. "He runs on instinct, and he's usually dead-on with any sort of electronic countermeasures, but his piloting skills leave something to be desired. He's barely made the last two cuts."

Kara nods as she sees her role: tutoring a pilot on raptors—not a task many viper pilots would, or even could, complete with the necessary skill and respect. Patterson's testing her commitment already.

"Be in front of Raptor Sims D at 1730 today if you're serious about _earning _extra sim time," the Major emphasizes the method.

Kara quickly nods her agreement.

"It won't be easy," he warns her.

A wry grin, "Teaching a bus driver never is." She clears her throat and her expression before he can call her on her impertinence. "Should I bring anything, sir?"

Major Patterson shakes his head. "Not this time, but we'll see about tomorrow." He takes a step away.

"Is there any way Apollo and I can get in a sim tonight?" she pushes before he can leave.

This time Patterson lets her see his grin. "I'll tell you what. I'll see if I can arrange something for tomorrow morning, if—and that's a big if—you manage to get the lieutenant started on Bavardi's Principles tonight. Plus, I'll have to check the Viper Sim schedule and then see if I'm available."

Kara's forehead crinkles. "You've never had to be there when you gave me sim time before, sir."

"True, but I'd seen you flying in them many times before I approved you the first time." Patterson tilts his head as if intrigued. "This time it isn't just you." He crosses his arms over his chest. "I've seen Lt. Adama's numbers, but I haven't seen him fly. I like to know how a pilot handles a plane before I sign off on him being in the cockpit. Even if he is licensed, and even if it is a sim, I'm still responsible for putting him there."

Kara nods her understanding while Major Patterson grabs the rest of his belongings and heads toward the room entrance. "By the way, sir," Kara asks, "the lieutenant I'm supposed to meet tonight, what's his name?"

"Agathon," Patterson opens the door, "Karl Agathon."


	4. Part 4

See first installment for headers and disclaimer.

**Chapter 8 Helo Again**

Kara slams her mobile phone shut in frustration. "Frakkin' Lee Adama!" She blasts the man under her breath. Her feet shuffle ten steps this way, ten steps that way in front of the Raptor Sims D check-in. She'd expected Lee might need some time alone after he left for Headquarters this morning, but it's nearly 1730. Helo will be here any moment. Helo…frak she doesn't even know if Karl's been gifted with that call sign yet.

Absently, she wraps her arm around her waist, lifting the fingers of her other hand to bite her nails. She's not supposed to know Helo for almost 3 years, not until just before she's stationed on Galactica. Kara's mind shies away from why she was stationed on Galactica in the first place to try to remember anything that Karl said about his time at the academy. Her mind touches on a thousand stories: pranks, exploits, and punishments all. She'd never known he'd had any difficulty earning his wings, though she doesn't have to wonder why he never told her. Still, it bothers her that she never knew.

"Lieutenant Thrace?" Karl's voice startles her out of her thoughts, halting her random pacing.

Helo looks just the same as always—short hair, casual walk, almost-smirking eyes just waiting for full expression. "Lieutenant Agathon." Kara hates the formality but meets Karl's extended palm with her own.

"I appreciate your willingness to tutor me, sir."

"Drop the 'sir,' Karl." She can't stand for ceremony between them. "I'm barely a full lieutenant. Kara's my name. Starbuck's my call sign."

He grins and nods. "I just got gifted six weeks ago. They call me Helo. Karl works, too."

"So Helo," Kara shifts toward the check-in desk, offering her ID for the clerk to scan. Helo follows suit. They wait to be assigned a sim number. "I hear you're a kick-ass ECO."

Karl's lips stretch. "I hold my own. In fact," he lowers his voice, a half-smile completes the invitation, "in the back of a raptor, with these hands," he holds them out for display, "I'm worth two or three guys at least."

"Hmm." Kara pretends a frown, licking and biting her lip in order to contain her grin. "Only two or three?" She raises an eyebrow. "Pity."

The clerk hands Kara her machine assignment before Karl can return a comeback. She checks the number and starts for their sim.

"I did say at least!" he hollers at her back.

A couple of hard, fast steps catches him up to her. She turns her head an inch to glance at Helo. His gaze is hot skimming over her body, not enough to be offensive, just enough to provoke a reaction. It's how he used to look at her when they first met, before they became good friends, before it became too awkward for them to have a casual frak every now and again. "Thanks," she smirks and looks forward, towards their destination, "but I'm not interested."

When she peeks back at him, he shrugs, smile intact. "Too bad. I have a feeling we would have been explosive together."

A comfortable chuckle escapes her mouth. "Oh, Helo! You have no idea."

The other pilots in the area take notice of them before Kara can continue conversation with Helo. A few familiar faces smile at them, a couple hands raise in greeting, several people yell their call signs, and somebody hollers about Kara missing last night's triad game. She answers the salutations and teasing as best she can but mostly lets Helo answer for them both. She can't remember any of their names. She can't look them in the eye either—until a few days ago, all of them were dead. Feeling Helo's eyes on her, Kara lets him stare, shuffling through the Raptor Sims on auto-pilot, seeking their number by the quickest means possible.

Upon reaching their assigned sim, Kara scans her card key into the access panel and punches in her ID.

"You seem like a popular girl, Starbuck," Helo observes, his side against the nose of the raptor, poise studiously casual. "How is it we never met until now?"

"You know I've wondered that, myself. I mean," she clears her throat before backtracking, "I do wonder that myself." Biting her lip. "It could just be the difference between a raptor and a viper."

He shakes his head, gesturing back the way they came and all the people who knew her name. "Probably not." He lets the quiet stretch between them while he shifts foot to foot, then walks aft of the Raptor Sim, grabbing two helmets. He hands one to her as she sets the computer program. "When I asked around about you, everybody said you were one of the best pilots to come through the academy, always on the edge of it, more seat-of-your-pants than textbook."

She finishes with the program and closes the console, holds his eye and her stance while waiting for him to get to his point. She shakes her head when he doesn't speak, "Say what you want to say."

"I'm just wondering what you get out of this. I know you're going for instructor status, but unless you're a brown-noser, which," Helo's smile gets broader, "from the stories I've gotten seems really unlikely, then it doesn't seem like you need this with your background."

"And you want to know why I'd tutor you?" She squints.

Karl backs off a bit, seeming to realize how a superior officer, even one with Starbuck's reputation might take offense at his words. "I guess I was a little curious as to what your story was," he concludes, turning to climb onto the sim, his tone leaving the matter an open query she could either answer or disregard.

Helo releases the hatch, and she ascends in silence behind him, considering: Helo should really meet Lee, the sooner the better.

Karl engages in the pre-flight check while Kara's still thinking of what to tell him. A question asked and answered between their eyes has him seated in the pilot's chair. Kara takes the co-pilot seat. They talk quietly between them. Karl's take-off is a little rough but not altogether unpolished.

"I have a friend," she finally says to Karl, eyes still forward. "I'm doing this so we can fly together." Helo looks over as she speaks, but turns back quickly enough. Then he tells her about the action he's got on the weekend's pyramid game with Cass State. Kara smiles, murmuring her responses and instructions as needed. That's what she'd always loved about Helo, even from the start he knew when to keep his mouth shut.

**Chapter 9 Possession**

Helo fumbles in the Raptor Sim's hands-on approach to the imaginary Battlestar. This time, the third time, Kara doesn't speak at all when the viewscreen explodes into shades of fire and mock death. Her eyes stay on Helo's hands—heavy on the stick, tense, forcing—uncomfortable. Unnatural.

"Let's try it again," she finally says in the silence of the darkened cockpit, "but let's do it a little differently this time." When she looks up through the red emergency lighting, Karl's eyes are already on her, looking past her gaze near her ear. "Helo," she demands, and he looks to her, eyebrows folded inward, lips thin with both embarrassment and frustration. "You with me?" she smiles.

He smiles back, the force of his personality muted by aggravation. "Right here with you Starbuck."

"Good. Close your eyes," she commands.

He smirks at her demanding tone but obeys, turning his body back to the nose.

Kara resets the simulator, settling on a beginners' tool for primary flight functions. The raptor's screen shows them already mid-flight, with free and unblemished space around them.

"Okay, loosen your grip. Keep your eyes closed, and get a feel for the sim."

A quirk of the head towards Kara. "Don't tell me you put me on the Nugget Run!"

Eyes rolling. "Fine. I won't tell you anything."

He exhales heavily then, lips back to that thin line, but his shoulders ease back in his seat as she keeps talking.

"I want you to think of the girl you were with last night."

"Ehm," he clears his throat, jaw clenching when his chin jerks. "Sir." He peeks at her through slit lids without turning his head.

"Eyes," Kara commands, and he obliges with another sigh. "Go with me on this Helo. And put her in your mind, whoever she was." The threads of muscles remain hard in his neck, but Kara keeps talking despite. "Whatever you did with her I don't care, I don't want to know. I just want you to remember how you touched her, talked to her." Kara pictures Helo and the last time she saw him in full seduction mode, just before the end of the worlds, teasing into the personal space of that brown haired marine that got killed while Kara was back on Caprica. "Light fingers and soft tones," she recalls aloud, picturing the way the corporal's shoulders leaned farther into Helo's space than he into hers after awhile. "You convince her, cajole her with your whole body, your every word, until her body's bowing for you, and she's wondering why the frak you haven't invited her back to your bunk yet."

"Are you sure you're not coming on to me, sir?" His shoulders angle towards her, maybe to mask the way he shifts in his seat.

"Positive. Get with the program. Now think about the girl from the night before that."

"I didn't—"

"Then the time before that. Think about what you did differently." She looks back to the viewscreen, finally able to note the sway of an easy touch. "You'd never approach two women in the same way. You watch them, listen and find your 'in.' You have to do the same with the ships you fly. They may have the same buttons, but each one has its own quirks."

Helo chuckles beside her, causing her to glance back his way. "The same buttons?" She finds his eyes glinting at her under his lashes, his expression a hybrid of a grin and a smirk. "You're killing me here. You know that right?"

It takes her a slow blink to realize he's serious. Her Helo would've understood the analogy without applying it to her, but this one hasn't yet formed the same boundaries. "Uhh." The sound escapes through her teeth in the unusually awkward silence between them. "I'm sorry. I, uh, I didn't mean to give you mixed signals. Sometimes I don't pay enough attention to what comes out of my mouth, but I'm…" she stutters while she tries to find a way to qualify what's going on with her and Lee. "I'm unavailable," she goes for simple.

"So you're saying that no matter what comes out of your mouth, I've got a perpetual red light with you, is that right?" His voice is even, with fewer undertones present in his tone or expression than before.

"Yeah." The word sounds like a commitment coming from her mouth, a promise to a man who isn't there to hear it. "You can say anything to me, Helo," she tells him, hoping he'll take her up on it, knowing she'll miss the interplay between them if he doesn't. "I'm hard to insult, but if you manage, I'll just tell you to frak off."

He shrugs, nods, and finally—grins. "Well, it's good to know where you stand, I guess."

She clears her throat and thinks to the silent cell phone in her pocket. "You're not kidding."

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It's only after darkness blankets the sky that Lee leaves sight of the runway. He backs Kara's truck onto the access road and drives toward the main drag, right hand remaining on the stick even after he shifts through the lower gears up to fourth. The high-pitched whine of tires on concrete distracts him, causes his eyes to wander from the road in confusion. He looks around the cabin of the truck as if trying to catch a recalcitrant thought. His eyes fall on the clock on the dash. He squints, trying to make sense of the hands.

"Frak." It's a statement. He reaches for his jacket, searching the pockets one-handed. The LCD display of his phone—brightly lit and complaining of nine missed calls—seems as unfriendly as Kara must be by now. He clicks two buttons to dial the number he programmed just this morning. He winces in preparation.

The line barely rings.

"Where the frak are you?" Under the hard edge of her voice, he can hear her concern. It gives him pause. The silence must last too long for Kara. "Lee?" This time there is real fear in her tone.

"I'm OK. It's OK," he forces past his lips, but can't think of anything else to say.

She permits his elusiveness, seeming to realize it's unintentional, but he can practically hear her close her eyes to focus on cues more subtle than his words. "I'm at Dionysus," she says, and his mind conjures memories of the bar—the congratulatory drinks he'd had with his classmates when they'd passed basic flight, the sweet Leonian Ale he'd bought for a blind date and later the taste of it from her mouth. He'd never been to Dionysus with Zak, though. He doesn't think Kara had either.

He checks his surroundings, noting the street sign. "I'm less than five minutes away." He can feel the thickness of her silence through the line, and he knows he isn't the only one lost for words. "I'm sorry about today. I didn't mean—"

"It's alright," she interrupts. "You're coming now."

It seems like a question. "Yes," he confirms.

She breathes heavily into the phone in what sounds like relief. "Alright then. We're sitting at the bar."

"We?" he questions, but she's already hung up.

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Kara slaps the phone shut in one sweeping motion, bringing her hand up immediately to call the barkeep. She orders four shots of Ambrosia when the bartender—a brunette with short shorts and tight top—answers her hail. A quick glance at Helo, whose eyes are settled a foot below the barmaid's, has Kara ordering a fifth shot. The brunette smiles and blushes at Helo, offering her name—Athena—as she pours the Ambrosia. Kara leaves Karl to his shot and his flirtation, grabs two glasses by their lips with her right hand, positioning the other two the same way in her left. She turns to face the door, and somehow Lee is already there, watching her as if he's been waiting a while. She licks her lips and takes a step for him—another step—another. He meets her by the card tables near the old-fashioned jukebox.

His right hand steals beneath her left to gather its load of two glasses between his fingers. Both of them transfer a shot to each hand. She watches Lee lift his glass to his lips and throws back a shot herself. Her eyes are drawn to his throat as he swallows, the slow movement somehow so mesmerizes her that she doesn't see his empty hand move until he's grasping her wrist above her Fleet-issued watch. She drops the glass she just drained, watches it hit the floor, shatter between them. His eyes are on hers when her gaze again touches his face. She likes it—the open possession she sees in his eyes, feels on her pulse. She doesn't try to get away. He still has a grip on her when they down their second shot.

Her body is soft, pliable—open—when he snatches her to him, when he lifts her arm level with his neck and tugs her forward until her gooseflesh kisses his body heat. She doesn't have time to be disappointed that he twists his head away—as soon as his neck turns, his mouth opens, his tongue flat as he tastes the Ambrosia from her palm, his lips parted as he kisses up from the fleshy ball of her hand to her wrist, past the military watch, up…up…to the inside of her elbow.

"Lieutenant Adama?" Helo's voice is almost completely incredulous. Damn, she'd forgotten about him. The clink of glasses, the roar of conversation, the idiot getting hustled at triad three tables over, all come back into focus when Lee slides their hands from his shoulder. She would've frowned at the abrupt motion, but Lee is still holding her wrist. Her hand twitches, itching to grab him back, but liking his possession of her pulse too much to slide away.

"Helo." Lee's voice is as rough as it had been over the phone, like he hasn't spoken to anyone all day.

"Sir," Karl returns, and Kara doesn't have to look to envision the little nod that goes with the more sedate greeting.

Lee shakes his head, only now looking away from Kara. "We're off the clock, Karl. So it's just Lee or Apollo."

The delay is brief, almost not worth noting. "So you finally got gifted?" Karl questions.

Lee stiffens. "Yes."

"Wait a minute," Kara interrupts, their conversation suddenly striking a chord within her, "so you guys know each other?"

Lee has no trouble meeting her eye, his stare so blank as to nearly go through her. "Helo and I met as sophomores."

"You never said anything." Her brow furrows, waiting for some reaction, some slight inflection to explain why she never knew they'd been acquainted before the end of the worlds.

"Cut him some slack," Helo busts in on her thoughts. "You were just complaining about how you couldn't get a hold of him all day anyway."

Kara clears her throat, looks to Helo's soft gaze. "No, you're right. I couldn't get to him," the whispered words come through a locked jaw and clenched teeth. "Seems like he's always just out of reach."

Lee tightens his grip on her wrist, the pressure so hard she can feel the blood struggling to get back to her heart. When she looks again, the intent in his eyes, Lee's full focus—his passion—on her, nearly makes her fold into him. She yanks her arm away. "The problem is I need something to hold onto, too." A step puts her face in Lee's space to hiss, "Something that won't disappear."

Kara doesn't look at either man when she walks away.

**Chapter 10 Depth Perception**

Lee closes his eyes so he doesn't have to watch her leave, but he can still hear her steps fading as she gets farther away. He can't seem to follow, can't make himself take a step outside his thoughts to reach for her. He's too tired from shifting through the muddied waters of his own mind.

"So it's been a while, Apollo," Helo emphasizes his call-sign.

Lee opens his eyes to find Helo carefully ignoring his disagreement with Starbuck. Karl gestures to an empty table opposite the bar. Lee follows the lead and takes a seat, watches Helo give the barmaid a rueful grin as he lowers himself into the chair right beside him—Karl never takes into account the concept of personal space, even with other guys. For once though, the other man's proximity doesn't bother him, but grounds him. It's familiar, comforting now, a piece of the life he left behind—will leave behind?—in the darkness above New Caprica.

Helo clears his throat, making Lee realize how long he's been silent. He raises his eyes from the scratched and crumbling surface of the table.

"I see you haven't lost your touch with women, Adama." Helo's eyes flick toward the bar entrance before balancing back above his grin, making Lee chuff in remembrance.

"Hey, at least there's no ECO-wannabe butting in and making the moves on my girl every five minutes."

"Your girl?" Eyebrows raise, a chin juts forward. "That's not the way I remember it."

Apollo shrugs, his lips tricked into a grin. "She had a hell of a way of making you forget about anything, didn't she?"

Helo joins the laughter, relaxes back into his chair. "Did she do that thing to you with the three fingers and the tongue?"

"Oh gods yes. Before that I'd never really—" Lee cuts himself off, watches Helo's grin stretch wider.

"Yeah, she widened my horizons, too." Karl lets it go with just a waggle of the eyebrows.

Lee clears his throat, tucks his chin. "I wonder whatever happened to her."

"You tell me. You're the one that got the girl." Helo grins and gestures with two fingers, somehow catching the barmaid's eye immediately and scoring them two beers.

"Yeah, well not for long, she moved on to greener pastures. I heard she found some Captain, double promoted right out of War College."

Helo shakes his head. "And I always pegged you for one who'd be going to Scorpia out of the Academy."

Apollo clears his throat, hides his eyes. "Yeah." His gaze shifts from Helo to the table then back again. A pair of short shorts—and the woman they're attached to—hasten towards their table, distracting the conversation. Lee's relieved, if surprised, that the brunette from behind the bar appears so promptly. He leans back so she can place the brown bottle in front of him. Helo just holds out a hand to accept his brew, along with a narrow slip of yellow paper with seven digits across it. Lee smirks at how quickly Helo works, but the other man just shrugs, a big grin stretching from ear to ear. Both men take long, slow sips. It's the same Leonian Ale Lee recalls tasting from a sassy junior lieutenant's mouth shortly before junior year ended. He wonders vaguely what happened to her, where she was when she died. He licks his lips, as if to chase that forgotten flavor of her mouth. _She's still _alive, he reminds himself. _It hasn't happened, yet. They're all alive, even Zak._

"You OK?" The concerned voice seems disconnected from Helo, who's usually on Kara's side in any argument.

"Yeah," Lee nods, bringing his gaze up yet again to meet Helo's, "I just have a lot on my mind."

Helo nods as if he could understand, then he sprawls out in his chair, beer balanced on one thigh, while Lee looks around the room to keep trying to avoid the ECO's eye. He puts his elbows on the table, and chugs half his beer in three gulps. A nervous motion sets the bottle on the table, one hand still gripped around its neck.

"So I like this girl you're seeing," Karl casually gestures to the front door that Kara stormed out of five minutes ago. "Don't know what the frak she sees in you, but she's cool. And very hot. Man can she talk dirty in a raptor."

Lee's eyes narrow in on Helo's, judging the man's tone. He watches another smirk break out on his face before realizing the ECO's lascivious pitch was meant to provoke him. "If you're trying to make a point, Agathon, I'd suggest you start moving quicker."

"What the frak are you still doing in here, Adama?" Helo shakes his head at him, but Lee just leans away, turns his head to the other direction to sigh in disgust. "Fine." Helo leans away, too, when there's no further response. "Be a dick, but you're going to be a dick without a girlfriend in another five minutes if you don't go after her."

"Kara's not—" Lee cuts himself off. No use in opening the floor for Helo, assuming Kara would even want him. "Today," he swallows, "today was bad."

"That why you wouldn't answer your phone to her?"

"No, I left the damn thing in the truck, I didn't hear it," he defends himself.

"Don't tell me. Tell her."

Lee follows Karl's gaze to the front door, and watches a blond woman that isn't Kara come over the threshold.

"Go," Helo encourages, softly this time, "and give me the rest of your beer," he adds reaching under Lee's grip to loosen his hold from the brown neck. "If you don't come back I won't hold it against you," he promises.

Lee stands, reaches into his pocket.

"It's OK, I got it," Helo indicates before Lee can count off the bills from his clip.

"Thanks," Lee nods, but Karl just shakes his head and waves him towards the door.

B

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G

She should've taken the truck keys, should've just snatched them out of Lee's pocket. Kara looks forlornly toward the battered red vehicle at the far end of the parking lot. She's tempted to hotwire it, but she hasn't done that in years, and she's not about to introduce a short into her electrical system over a stupid fight with Frakin' Lee Adama.

A quick check into her cell phone's memory confirms she still has the numbers of three cab companies programmed inside. She presses two buttons to dial her favorite. They used to have a Virgonese guy there who'd give her free rides for stories about viper aerobatics.

She listens to the taxi company's recording automatically, offering her location when prompted but staying silent when the mechanical voice asks if she'd like a particular driver. Vipers and Apollo are melded together in her mind. And it's not like she can remember Virgonese guy's name anyway. He might have been Shane. Or Sean, maybe?

_Gods, who wouldn't I kill for a stogie right now? _She thinks before she remembers that cigars aren't the rare commodities they were on Galactica. She can pick up a pack of Caprican Sun at any corner store. Instead of soothing her, the thought unbalances her, causes her to glance around at the once familiar, once dead and gone, now ever-present all around her. People, mostly officers and their dates, shuffle in and out of Dionysus' front door less than ten meters away—laughing, flirting, smiling, looking forward to getting laid—while she stands outside of it all waiting for her frakkin' cab. The weather is warm under Picon's sky but no longer hot with the sun below the horizon. The asphalt in the parking lot sheens under the streetlights. It looks almost wet, but the pavement isn't slick under her sneakers. Her footing is solid even if the rest of her seems to be on a slippery slope.

"Frakkin' Lee Adama." The soft venom of her words can't hide the hurt beneath, not even from her own angry ears. Kara looks to the stars, muted above her by the lights of the city. "And frak you, too, Helo," she curses her former friend, wherever he is.

The door to the bar opens again, but the squeak that should follow with its closing doesn't come, as if the person exiting Dionysus is either waiting or watching. A full minute crawls by without that resounding screech, and the idea that it's Apollo in the doorway passes from a suspicion to a fact within her mind. She feels his eyes on her back—like a balm to sunburned skin, both itchy and soothing. She bites her lip, jams her hands deep into her pockets, refuses to acknowledge him. She's sure it's him. She's sure Lee came after her. She's pretty sure.

"Kara." She sucks in a harsh breath when he whispers her name.

Her lips move, the traitors, so she bites her tongue—hard.

"Kara," Lee says again. The damning squeal of the door yelps as he lets it go and comes after her.

Her words come through clenched teeth, "What do you want from me, Lee?"

His feet shuffle toward her, his steps light and measured. She wonders if he's walking on the balls of his feet, if his delicate footing means he's waiting to swoop or to bounce. He stops beside her. She turns her head away but not before catching a glimpse of his face from the corner of her eye. Her breath quickens when she realizes he's not wearing his regular mask.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about today—"

She huffs an interruption, as if today really mattered in the scheme of things. But all those other days, the everyday lies—

"And I'm sorry about Helo. We knew each other very briefly during sophomore year. We were dating the same girl, and," by the way his voice changes, she knows he's looking down, penitent, "it didn't bring out the best in either of us."

Chin lifting. "And you couldn't tell me," her head whips back around to him, "neither of you saw fit to tell me, that two of the most important people in my life knew each other before I met either of you?"

"We didn't like each other, Kara." His hands are open as he explains. She doesn't dare chance to see if his eyes are the same. She doesn't want to know.

"Frak you, Lee." Her face casually turns back to the street again, waiting still for her cab. "I'm done with this. I'm just done with you."

The rough hand on her bicep whirls her around, forces her to face him. "No!" he denies her words. "Frak you, Kara!" he curses back, his eyes on fire at her dismissal, his finger in her face. "You don't get to say this is over because your feelings get hurt one time."

She yanks away, shoves him with both hands to his chest. But he pushes back into her space, spiking her adrenaline and filling her body with heat and wrath. _Fight me, Lee,_ she thinks what she'd never urge aloud. _Fight for me._

"Back off!" she demands, voice low, fists tight, as she contrarily steps into him.

"No." He moves again so he's flush against her, so she's forced to look up into his eyes or to weakly look away.

"Lee if you don't get the hell away from me—"

"What are you going to do?"

Her whole arm clenches. She would've taken a step back to gain the space to punch him, but he grabs her wrist. She moves her left hand without real intent, and he takes that one, too, not letting her move.

Her breath forces her breasts into his chest. "Lee…" she warns again, her voice as hard as ever, but her eyes peek toward his lips.

He catches her, smirks from his mouth to his narrowed blue eyes and everything in between. "This really gets you off, doesn't it, Kara?" He angles his face closer.

Her lips tighten against his moist exhalations. She would've shaken her head to deny his claim, but another deep breath grazes her nipples against his chest, making her realize he felt them hard and heavy the first time. She feels the blood rushing to her head, but before true humiliation can set in, Lee presses his hips to hers. His arousal, thick against her hip, quickly dispels any notions of embarrassment.

"You really like this alpha male, cave man crap, don't you?" he accuses, but when she opens her mouth to answer, he leans in to take it. He forces her lips wider, pushes his tongue inside. She pushes back in a clash of teeth and lips and tongue. He shoves her arms behind her, to the small of her back. But she won't let him encase both wrists in one hand. She makes him work for it, for her.

"Don't push it, Lee," she finally warns but still concedes to his kisses, lifting her chin and submitting her neck to the manipulations of his mouth.

He widens his stance against her, keeping her wrists in his capture but loosening his stiff posture to wrap around her more protectively. She lets him bite down to her shoulder, to that favorite spot of his between her neck and the bulge of her collarbone—it always makes her moan when he does that—before she tucks her chin and forces his lips up to hers. She mouths her way to his ear, to that sensitive patch of skin just below his jaw.

He gasps and pulls back, resting his cheek beside hers, rubbing the day's grit and stubble roughly against her skin. She rubs back, loving the texture, needing that realness. "Well, I like the Alpha female crap," he pants into her ear, "so I guess it evens out."

Kara smiles into his skin, feels his corresponding grin break out against her cheek, and she parts her thighs to take his leg between them. Lee shifts his leg, slowly easing back and forth, offering only the slightest teasing friction. He drops his head and inhales deeply.

"Gods, I can smell you." He presses further, but they can't get any closer with clothes on.

"Come on. Take me home." A promise exchanges by the quick tilt of her head and he lets her lead him away, one hand still secure around her wrist. She grabs his wrist above those constraining fingers, grips him tight so he can't get away either. She weaves through the parked cars, their mutual hold unwavering.

She looks at him expectantly when they get to her truck, parked between two others, but he's ahead of her. He's unlocked the driver's door almost as quickly as she's turned around.

"Thanks." She grabs the keys, reclaims her hand, steps in front of him, and opens the door.

Lee reaches past her, manually shuts off the dome light in the cab. He grabs her hips before she can step up onto the runner and boost herself in.

"Lee?" she questions, unmoving. He doesn't answer, just steps behind her, fitting her ass into his groin, causing her to grip the upholstery with both hands. "Let's go home," she urges in what she's afraid must be a pathetic sort of horny whine, but his hands shift, curl from her hips to her abdomen, down to the tops of her thighs, back up to the creases of her legs. "Lee?" his name ends on a gasp, as his fingers steal between her legs. "What the frak are you doing?" she asks desperately, leaning back into his body, hands naturally falling over his hands. "You never even used to do PDAs."

"I know," his words are hushed by her hair. His acknowledgment muted by his other hand, slipping to her fly, patiently working her button and zipper.

"Oh gods." He slips his fingers through the open uniform into her panties.

"Frak!" His hips pulse against her ass when he reaches her, swollen and slippery. "Kara," he growls, and the quick, short circles of his fingers make her gasp, unable to answer.

She tightens her grip on his forearms, loving the feel of the prickly hair against her hands and wrists, aching for more of his fevered breath in her hair, of his desperate hips behind her, of his clever fingers—circling, circling, thrusting… "More," she demands, and he moves harder, faster, deeper… "Deeper…" deeper… "Gods, yes, Lee!" She stiffens and shakes, but he doesn't slow down until she's crumpled up against him.

"Oh." She nuzzles her face into his neck contentedly, one hand climbing up to run though his thick, dark hair. She loves the feel of it through her fingers, and Lee always leans his head into her caress, even if he's pissed at her.

"Kara. Kara, please," his desperate words finally reach through the heated fog of her mind. "I'm so close. I'm so close Kara, please," Lee begs, and she loves it. "The streetlights don't reach and the two trucks—"

"Yes," Kara promises. "Yes anything." _Yes to absolutely frakkin' anything._

He kisses her temple briefly and pulls his fingers from her. She feels him releasing his fly, pulling out his cock behind her. Still, she's surprised that he not-so-gently urges her forward, tugs her uniform and panties past her hips, down below the swell of her ass.

"Oh my gods," she barely has breath to speak when she realizes he's going to frak her right there in the parking lot. She quickly glances around, doesn't see anyone standing and looking, but on the street, cars are moving to and fro, and the door of Dionysus opens and shuts under bright lights a bare fifteen meters away. She bends slightly to rest her arms on the seat of the truck. "Lee." The head of his cock brushes against her bare ass as he shifts her and positions himself behind her.

Lee grabs her hips in both hands, slides into her, groans when she pushes back to greet him. "Kara," he always says her name when he eases inside her, even from that first time.

She reaches back to find his hand on her hip. He takes her cue, squeezes her digits while he thrusts inside—so much deeper than his fingers, so much thicker, so much more.

"Kara." The intonation of her name warns her he's closer than she is. She minds the notice, moves her free hand down to circle her clit, the motion pushing her breasts into the seat's side upholstery. She loves the grunt he makes every time her fingers brush against him on the downstroke. She gasps and aches, her breasts longing for wide hands or rough pinching fingers, yet even still, her less-frantic'd fingers choose to tangle with his, needing that connection.

"Kara," he says one last time, his hips shoving into her erratically, slowing down until he stops, but he stays there, inside her, so she wiggles her fingers faster, comes around his softening cock, the weight of his body behind her a layer of heated protection she should probably spurn but doesn't.

In the stillness that follows, she feels him attend to her, put her clothing to rights and kiss her back through her tanks, hears him tuck and zip. His hands return to her back then, rubbing up to her shoulders then sliding down to her sides, along her hips, and back up again.

Slowly, she becomes aware of other things: the rough cloth of her seat cover pushing into her cheek, the zoom of the traffic on the main road. "Shit my cab," she recalls aloud and turns to look. Lee glances around, too, but there's no yellow taxi anywhere.

"Guess he caught another passenger."

She shrugs, bites her lip but can't hide the huge grin spanning from ear to ear. "It's only fair, I caught another ride."

"Ah!" he chuckles with her—Lee smiles an _easy _smile with her—he eases his hands to her hips, urges her closer and kisses her. She relaxes into possessive hands and gentle lips. He rests his cheek against hers, and she reaches her arms up to run her fingers through his hair.

"I love that," he says and sends gooseflesh up and down her body before she really comprehends what he says.

She chuckles back, partly at herself for her own foolishness, for girlish dreams that linger overly long, and so the sound is almost bitter. "I know."

He stiffens in her arms, and she winces. But he holds on. He nuzzles his way into her hair. "I…" he stutters, "I love it when you touch me."

The confession is soft, like a breeze, but it resonates through her like a solar flare—violently luminous. She holds him tighter, feeling the weight of his concession, trying to reciprocate, trying not to give too much away, to balance them both.

"Shh," he whispers and softly kisses her ear, "we're better at fighting and frakking, but we'll get there."


	5. Part 5

See first installment for headers and disclaimer.

**Chapter 11 fragile frakkin' balance**

Lee boosts her into the truck, one hand on her hip, the other on her ass. It's only because he's feeling her up as he does it that Kara lets the chivalric gesture slide. She slips the truck key into the ignition and eases the clutch while Lee rounds the vehicle. He hops into the passenger seat just as the engine turns over.

Lee left it in reverse, thinking ahead as always, so she only has to release the emergency brake—_Lee_—and look behind her. Her arm comes up to the back of the bench seat automatically when she twists to look for traffic meandering about Dionysus' parking lot. Her hand finds Lee's already there. When her startled eyes glance over, he's smiling at her, his expression more open than she can remember in quite a while. She holds his gaze. There is no burden in the intensity of his stare but instead a concentrated weightlessness, like flying above the atmosphere. She realizes she's grinning back at him.

She has to look away to finish maneuvering out of the parking spot, but Kara feels Lee's eyes on her still as she uses both feet and removes her hand from his to switch gears—why did she buy a stick, anyway? She merges into traffic, the silence in the cab full of Lee, of the memory they've just made. She hums as she shifts up, the motion of pressing the clutch reverberating up her leg and echoing between her thighs.

Lee lifts his hand to her shoulder and squeezes. She chances a look at him while they drive down the boulevard. His smile, though gentled, is still holding. The moment she pops up to third gear, he slides his fingers down, teasing all the way to her hand. He laces their digits for a moment, just long enough to bring the palm of her hand to his lips and lead it back down to the gearshift.

It's only when she licks her lips that she realizes how widely they span across her face. She should tell him about her deal with Major Patterson, about the possibility of flying tomorrow. But Lee speaks first,

"Did Dad ever tell you about Moira Jacobs?"

Kara feels her brow condense at Lee's question. "Umm, Jacobs?" she repeats the name, but it doesn't jog her memory.

Lee leans back into the worn cushions of the bench seat. "He met her near the end of the First Cylon War." Lee uses terminology only she would understand. Before the end of the worlds, the First Cylon War had been the only one. "They were stationed together on the Battlestar Odysseus. They met in the air."

"Wait," Kara halts him at the familiarity of the story, "you mean Reaper?"

"Yeah," Lee nods, and she tries to direct more of her attention back to the road. "That's who I met with today." He chuckles—long and low.

"What?" she grins to hear the sound.

He shakes his head, face aimed downward, but he can't hide his sheepish features. "I used to have the biggest crush on her when I was thirteen."

"Lee Adama! She must be old enough to be your mother!"

"Older actually."

Kara guffaws, fights to bring her eyes back to the road. "Okay, so besides reliving fantasies of your _father's wingman_," she leads, because honestly, she will never let that go now that she knows, "what else happened at Headquarters?"

He shrugs this time. "Reaper told me I could have the post. Even gave me the paperwork," he finishes casually, almost indifferently, but there's a sudden tension in his posture when she glances over and watches him remove a thin bunch of folded papers from his breast pocket.

She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, biting it, wondering if she should push, if it would rock their fragile balance too far. She exhales through her mouth and keeps her gaze locked on the road laid out before them. Of course she pushes, "Is that all?"

She hears the subtle and repeated shift of fabric, like he's shaking his head. "She dated them for next week." His voice is flat, like the words don't matter to him, but his utterance makes her pause her breath.

"Frak!" she curses softly.

Again, Lee laughs beside her, but this time, the sound's a little more unstable. "Yeah," his voice gets a little louder. She thinks he must have turned to face her directly. "Think I can make it seven days, no papers without begging for another assignment?"

"Yes," Kara answers honestly, because truly, Lee's ultimate actions won't be the problem—it will be the confusion and misdirection a week of over-thinking will get him.

"I don't know," a whispered response. "I just don't know. But I feel like…" he pauses as he searches for some ephemeral word or phrase. "I feel like if I could just see these problems from the air, they'll all come together. Start to make sense." His voice remains low, so it's almost like a shared thought rather than a spoken concern.

Kara opens her mouth, but immediately shuts it and looks away. Patterson's promise of sim time isn't a guarantee, and she refuses to let Lee's hopes rise only to tear them down in the morning if the Major falls through. _I understand,_ she wants to say of his dilemma but can't quite utter aloud. _I'm sorry,_ she thinks as well. _I'm here._ Her lips stay sealed together, but her eyes shift between Lee and the road they're on.

They're forced to stop at a red light. Kara automatically gears down, and then her tongue lets loose, "Let's go home and frak until we can't walk."

Immediately the intensity of Lee's gaze is on her. She meets that weight, carries it. Finally, Lee chortles beside her.

"Are you going to fly me over the moon, Starbuck?" He bows towards her, the full grin on his face nearly matching the expression in his eyes.

"Why stop at the moon?" Kara challenges, leaning back into his space—openly, as if sure. "You and me together, Apollo…. We can make it beyond the Red Line," she tries to say it strongly, but her mouth is so dry she has to swallow, lick her lips.

The bald grin fades from Lee's expression, leaving a smile in all the lines of his face, not just his mouth. He nods, cups her cheek in his hand. "So, it's a deal, then," his blue irises shift focus from eye to eye, steal down to her mouth and back up again, "we'll fly the distance."

She nods back at him, lashes down as she watches his lips come closer. She squeezes her eyes all the way shut. "Lee," she gasps, and he licks her lips but keeps his tongue outside her mouth. He ends the contact with a quick, affectionate peck and pulls away, rubbing a thumb against her open mouth, wet from where both their tongues flirted but didn't meet.

"Light's green." He clears his throat and tries again, "You've got a green light, Kara."

She glances out the windshield. "Right," she clears her own throat. "Let's go home, then." She nods, expecting Lee to slide back to his side of the vehicle, but this time, Lee doesn't move away.

**Chapter 12 Seat of Her Pants**

There's a buzzing noise to the left of Lee's head, but it's barely there before it's gone again, halted by the dulcet tones of Kara in the morning. She shifts in the bed beside him, and then there's a click.

"Lee Adama get your ass up right this second!"

His head shoots off the pillow. He looks around, but can't find her blond hair in the dark. "Kara, what the frak?" His eyes check the alarm clock beside the bed. "It's 0530." He falls back down to the cushion. "You don't have to be anywhere until 0800. Wake me up when you want to leave, and I'll drop you off."

"Lee do you have any idea who that was on the phone?" she demands but doesn't wait for a response. "It was Major Patterson. He reserved two Viper Sims for you and me this morning if we can be there by 0615."

His lids rocket upwards. "The frak!" he hollers, jumping from her bed. She flicks the light, and he finds her, hair at all angles, her breasts rocking free beneath the dark green tank she ripped off him last night only to throw over her own head before she'd go to sleep. There are no pantylines beneath the tank, but if she lifts her arms a little higher while she scurries about the room, he'll know for sure what she isn't wearing under his shirt. "Kara, Viper Sims?" His stillness is in direct contradiction to her flurry of movement, but the calm is necessary to his balance as he tries to catch up.

She pauses in the middle of grabbing her own tanks and cargo pants. "Viper Sims," she comes back, the huge grin across her face confirming the fact of it more than her actual utterance.

He grins back and rushes for his own clothes. "Why didn't you tell me?" he yells to her back as she hustles into the bathroom.

"I wasn't sure if he could get them or not," Kara's voice comes through the half-closed door. "He just called two minutes ago to say it was a go."

"Viper Sims!" He pulls his pants to his waist and stalls, looking at the zipper Kara nearly tore free of his slacks last night. "Frak I need a shower." He kicks them back off, leaving him naked.

"Me first!" Kara yells back, the initial spritz from her crappy showerhead punctuating her claim.

He jogs up to the bathroom sink and squeezes a line of paste onto her toothbrush.

"You better not be using my toothbrush again," she calls from the stall. "You know that's disgusting."

"How many times did we have sex last night, Kara?" he tries to speak around the bristles moving back and forth across his molars.

"Sharing bodily fluids is one thing, sharing plaque is another." She jumps out of the still-running shower and steals the toothbrush from his hand as he passes her and jumps in.

"Ahh!" he screams when the freezing water hits him. "Dammit Kara!" He hurriedly flips the hot water back on.

She throws back the curtain just enough to peek her head in, glances downward and back to his face. "You'd better stick to cold water if you want your dick to fit in your flight suit, Apollo."

He flicks a hand towards her head, but she maneuvers the curtain back before she can catch the splash. He rushes through the shower, barely soaping up before rinsing off. Lee twists the knobs and yanks on the curtain, grabbing his towel as he steps out of the stall.

Fully dressed, Kara slips out of the bedroom as he hurries back in. He grabs her by the waist in the doorway, dropping his towel as his other hand comes up to catch her cheek. Her mouth is open to his for the few seconds that they meet. When he pulls back, he knows the wide grin spanning her face is a match for his. He bites his lip, squeezes both his hands where he has them around her. "Ha, ha!" He lets her go to fist his hands, then rushes toward his clothes.

Thwap! She smacks his ass before backing towards the kitchen.

"Way too tempting not to," she explains when he looks over his shoulder to meet her eyes.

The grin doesn't leave his face while he finds another pair of pants and the tanks he set out before.

"Do you want a raspberry bar or a cherry one?" Kara yells on the other side of the wall.

"Cherry!" he sounds back. Raspberry's her favorite. He finishes dressing, adds his tags and hustles for the door. He grabs the key ring in one hand, bends to pick up their wallets and her dinky little notebook from the coffee table with the other.

She gets to the front door just as he's opening it. "Oh wait!" She looks back to the coffee table.

"I've got it." He holds up the hand full of their junk.

She nods, and they step out together, Kara closing and locking the door behind them. "OK." Kara reaches out a hand, and Lee transfers half his load to her. He stuffs his wallet into his thigh pocket while Kara follows suit beside him. She hands him the cherry bar and opens the raspberry with her incisors.

Lee just shakes his head beside her but doesn't bring up the contradiction with her toothbrush paranoia. She chomps into her energy bar while he's ripping his open with both hands.

He thumbs the keys and unlocks the passenger door of the truck, hopping in and leaning over to flick the release on her side of the cab. He slides the key into the ignition before slipping his seatbelt over his lap. Kara jumps in, tosses her empty wrapper onto the floor at Lee's feet, and immediately starts the car, weaving out of the parking lot and directly into traffic. Lee bends over, picks up her litter, and puts it in the plastic bag he set aside the day before for that purpose. When he looks back up at Kara, she's alternating smirking at him and focusing on the filled roadways between them and the academy.

The horizon illuminates as they drive, the grays of night turning to the red shades of dawn. Lee watches the clock on the dash as it gets closer to 0600.

"We're gonna make it," Kara insists, zigzagging between the other vehicles as if she were already in the cockpit.

"That's why you're driving," Lee comes back, his words emphasized by Starbuck's slick merger into the far right lane.

She looks away from the road to catch his eye, maybe to see if he's joking.

"I'm serious here!" he squeezes out through clenched teeth when she barely misses a rogue door, suddenly and inexplicably ajar on a parked car. "Starbuck!"

"Calm down, we're almost there!" she jibes back, but he can see her swallow at the near miss.

They both exhale in relief when she reaches the rank-appropriate parking garage. They pay for their parking pass on the way in and beat a svelte little sports car to the last slot on the first level.

Lee checks the time when they slip out of the truck. "We've got five minutes to make it across campus and get into our flight suits!"

"Race ya!" Kara tosses him the truck keys while setting the challenge.

"Kara!" The silver keys jingle and bounce in his hands twice before he gets a firm grip on them and runs after her.

Lee chases her across the green behind the Chem Building, through the trees along the path of the Freshmen Run. He catches up to her down by the mini-park in front of Folstein Hall where they'd first met. They run side-by-side for the sim buildings.

"Which Viper Sim?" Lee asks when they get close enough.

"B," her short and sweet response.

When they reach the building, he spurts ahead to open the door for her. She rolls her eyes and jogs right through. They hurry into the locker room, pushing through the early semester morning crowd to get flight suits fitted over their clothes. They meet again less than sixty seconds later at the check-in desk. A blond-haired major, whom Lee thinks was probably there when he and Kara rushed in a moment before, watches them closely as they reemerge, his posture stiff, as if he were not at all tempted to lean against the counter beside him.

"You know I don't think I've ever seen anyone dress in a flight suit that quickly outside of a live fire exercise," the Major's near jovial tone makes up for the lack of expression on his face.

"Major Patterson, sir. This is Lt. Lee Adama," Starbuck introduces them.

"Sir!" Lee barely remembers to salute first and not to wait for the Major to do it. Lee was a commander far longer than he was a major.

"At ease," Patterson chuckles at what he probably perceives to be earnestness.

"Yes, sir," Lee nods, still catching his breath. "Thank you, sir, for finding us sim time. Starbuck and I really appreciate it," Lee speaks for both he and Kara even though she hates when he does that.

Patterson nods, eyeing Lee as he does. "Don't thank me yet," he warns. "I've already programmed the simulator, and I'm going to put you through the ringer, Lieutenant."

Lee nearly smiles at the familiarity of the threat. In all his time at the Academy and at War College afterward, every instructor he'd ever had rode him hard after they found out his father was a commander in the Fleet. When they challenged him, as they all did, he'd said that he would work hard to meet his promise—but that was before he'd known Starbuck. He grins. "I'll do my best to exceed your expectations, sir."

It was just a little cheeky, nothing overt, nothing like Kara might have said herself, but she pokes him in the back with her elbow from her position at his left, and he can practically hear her lips part in a smile.

Patterson glances to Kara and back to him. "Let's see what you've got." The Major hands them each a keycard. "Starbuck, you're in 11, and…" he drifts off to wait for one of them to fill in the blank on Lee's call-sign.

"Apollo," Kara answers for him.

"Apollo?" Patterson raises almost invisibly blond eyebrows. "Apollo," he clears his throat as if to keep from saying anything else, "you're in 12." He nods his dismissal and Starbuck and Apollo hustle to their sims.

Lee climbs up the ladder to Viper Sim 12. He looks to Kara, catches her eye. "Good hunting, Starbuck." He continues the small good luck tradition that began when he was her CAG.

"Good hunting, Apollo," she nods back, completing the ritual.

Starbuck grins, and he grins back. He jumps into the cockpit and fastens his helmet, knowing Starbuck is doing the same beside him. As a model Mark VI, the hatch closes on its hinges above his head, rather than sliding back like Galactica's Mark IIs. The screens of the canopy darken in shades of gray, simulating the base of a launch tube. A mechanical voice counts down the launch: navcon green, interval check, grid lock…and then the screen shifts—rolls back and back—and he can feel the simulated Gs in his head, in his stomach, in his frakkin' spleen. "Whoo-hoo!" he can't help but holler as his sim clears the Battlestar, and he kicks in the burn right out of the tube. Starbuck's own war cry comes through his headset before a low tenor interrupts.

"Cut the chatter," Patterson's sober voice echoes in Apollo's ears, the Major apparently taking on the task of communications officer himself rather than to let one of the enlisted in training do so. "We've got four cylon raiders on Dradis, and we can't get the other pilots out of the launch tubes before they reach you."

Lee shakes his head once, grin still wide across his face—wouldn't be the first time he and Starbuck found themselves facing such circumstances.

"Destroy the raiders before they can attack your ship," Patterson continues, "the Battlestar Orion."

"Orion," Apollo whispers to himself as he and Starbuck move to intercept. Fleet simulators were the only place where a Battlestar Orion had ever existed. He'd nearly forgotten the term.

Apollo glances at his screens, the Dradis confirming the presence of raiders while the system checks confirm the continued viability of his viper. Though visual contact's still impossible, he checks the spot through the stars where they'll shortly appear. "Four bandits," he calls over the wireless. "Range twenty. Weapons free, Starbuck."

"Copy that, Apollo." She takes up her usual place just short of his 9 o'clock.

When they show up on the screens of his canopy, the simulated raiders are boxier, bulkier than the real thing, more like the older models his father and Reaper would have fought during the First Cylon War. The raiders split as they come into visual range, trying to force him from his wingman. He and Starbuck don't even speak to agree on their targets. They both bypass the front pair of raiders, who try to tease them away in a long, wide arc. Instead they go for the aft pair in the protected position two klicks behind—Cylons always hide their nukes in the rear charge.

Starbuck accelerates and comes over the wire, "Target acquired: tone and lock." He gives her the kills, covering her six as the front pair doubles back to try to trap them. Apollo goes 180, sticking near Kara's 5 o'clock.

The beeping begins in his headset immediately, the sound lengthens until he can echo Starbuck: "Tone and lock." He blasts them both from the sky in two short bursts, the four raiders gone in less than 10 seconds.

Lee flips back around and takes a half second to check his Dradis and his peripheral vision. He eases right into a triple barrel roll, knowing Starbuck is following his lead on his left, spinning with him, again and again, for no other reason than because he's doing it. The throaty, thrilled laughter in his ear only confirms his situational awareness. When they straighten out, Kara spins her bird to face his ship, speeding just slightly in front of him. She can't even be two meters off his nose, giving him the closest Viper Kiss he's ever had while still in full motion—even if they are in sims. Lee can see her smiling at him by the dim light of her helmet, courtesy of the camera inside her cockpit, just before she rolls to her right and he to his.

Starbuck forms up on his wing and glides towards him. The skies are still clear when she passes over him and waits for him to fall away and overtake her position from the same direction. Apollo follows the pattern she initiates, and they weave a Narrow Twist all the way back to the Orion. They fly closer and closer together as they soar, until their wings nearly touch in the shadow of the Battlestar. Starbuck breaks the Twist to razz the deck. There's no sound in space and no turbulence without atmosphere, so the only purpose of razzing a spaceship is to scare the Dradis officer. Of course, since this is a sim, there is no Dradis officer. There's only Major Patterson in the Simulation Control Room.

"Starbuck!" the Major yells as if she'd really put a bird at risk.

"Sir?" she asks innocently, just as Apollo tags her route.

"Apollo!" Patterson hollers through the headset in that same tone when Lee's Dradis signal practically merges with Orion's.

"Lee!" Starbuck squeals at his mischief, an echo of hers.

Once he clears the Orion, Lee starts a Panacean Circle, his reverse orbit of the Battlestar an imitation of the fifth moon over Asclepius, the largest gas giant in the system. He's entirely too close to the Battlestar's stern, and the Gs toss him up against the port side of his cockpit, making his hold on the stick on his right tenuous at best. If he blacks out, his fingers will slip, and his inertia will suck him right into the side of the Orion. He holds the Panacean Circle, rotates the traditional six times 'round the ship in honor of all of Asclepius' daughters. He adds another rotation despite the flashes of white on the edges of his vision so to give tribute to their grandsire—Apollo.

The last circle complete, Lee steers away from the Orion and watches Starbuck finish the final two loops of her Panacean Circle before joining him. "You added a turn," she accuses, even though she'd spun with him on the Orion's bow and couldn't have kept track of both her own positioning and his.

"So did you," he knows because she always follows him through that extra circle, that extra klick, the extra comeback, drink, and shift—she pushes him there.

"Couldn't let you get one up on me, Apollo," she teases.

He smiles unseen. "I'd never be ahead for long." And he'd never be alone for long either: Kara would always find him—he's more certain of that fact than ever before.

"Starbuck, Apollo," Patterson interrupts from Viper B SimCon, and Lee's grateful that the Major found them interesting enough to delay the start of the next sim until they'd completed their maneuvers around the Orion. "You have incoming bandits—thirty raiders, three air groups. Course 0-1-5. The alert fighters are in the air."

Apollo checks his Dradis even before Patterson finishes his speech, noting the blips on the screen—vipers and raptors coming up on his six, raiders to his 2 o'clock. "Copy that, Orion." Lee marks the distance. "Approximate thirty seconds until weapons range with the first air group."

"Negative, Apollo," the Major comes back. "Forty-two seconds."

Brow crumpled, Lee's eyes go back to the Dradis screen. An extra second's viewing confirms Patterson's time estimate. "Huh," Lee bites the side of his mouth.

"Yeah, these raiders don't have the punch we're used—"

"Kara!" Lee breaks radio protocol when Starbuck starts to voice the thought he couldn't quite stifle completely.

"If the cylons are still out there, then they wouldn't have remained stagnant for thirty-seven years," Kara scolds dryly. "Academy sims don't account for the lapse in engineering. Most people below colonel acknowledge that."

"Starbuck…" Lee purses his lips, shakes his head at his pilot, "just shoot the cylons from the sky, eh?"

"Copy that, Apollo," Kara comes back, the smirk evident in her tone even if he can't see her face. "Bet you I score ten cylons before you do," she finishes in a rush, weapons blazing as the raiders come into range.

A small explosion marks the first of Kara's kills. "You're on," Lee takes her challenge, zipping past her to the next cluster of cylons. His bullets cut through his first raider as hers rip through a second.

"Keep going like that, and you'll almost be good enough to win, Apollo," Starbuck's jibe reaches him just as the alert fighters approach the battle.

"Watch out for the nuggets, Starbuck," Lee warns. All of the simulated vipers are labeled as nuggets because they're nearly always about as skilled as canon fodder in most sims and are sometimes more dangerous to pilot around than if the sim were to be maneuvered entirely without their diversionary services.

"Trying to distract me, Apollo?"

Lee darts around a particularly untalented nugget, just barely managing to take out the raider on his six before it destroys the nugget's port engine.

"No," he says, one side of his mouth raised. "Just trying to remind you, that the more nuggets die, the more our score goes down."

"Frak, Lee," Starbuck huffs, "our score."

"Yeah," he chuffs back, the irony of price not lost on him—back on Galactica, the cost would be in lives, not in a set of meaningless numbers. "But you still can't tell me it's not important to you right here, right now," Lee points out and earns her silence. He checks her location in his canopy window, noting her positioning in relation to the surrounding nuggets and raiders before setting after the next bandit.

In the end, she assists him with a kill, and he helps her with two, evening their scores—nine to nine—before Kara takes her tenth raider with her lone remaining heat seeker.

The six raiders still intact turn tail and run. Both Lee and Kara chase the fleeing cylons, precipitating the order they assume imminent.

Instead, Patterson's voice comes through tersely at their advance, "Starbuck, Apollo, break off pursuit."

"Negative, Orion, we can keep them from jumping and relaying our position," Kara doggedly sets the next cylon in her sights, Lee on her wing, while the nuggets scurry back towards the shadow of the Battlestar.

"Cylon raiders are not capable of FTL jumps," the Major's tones straddle anger and confusion. "Return to the ship immediately."

Lee blinks and shakes his head as if to separate real, unreal, and frakking surreal. _It's a frakkin' sim_. He could hardly have forgotten that fact with these boxy raiders—easy target practice—running about and fleeing without much in the way of organization. Real cylons are so much smarter, stronger, and Lee knows, truly he does, that he and Starbuck can let these raiders go because they don't actually exist. He sucks in a breath, tightens his jaw. They are _not _real. He lets the air seep from his lungs.

"Starbuck," Apollo speaks her name as a command.

Kara remains on the raider's six, but doesn't take the perfect shot in front of her, and Lee knows she hasn't forgotten its simulated nature, either. If Starbuck had honestly thought the raider a threat, she'd have blasted it from the sky three times already.

"I know," her whisper is hoarse in his ear, "I just…the thought of _this _cylon getting someone when I could've…" She clears her throat and abruptly breaks off. Lee turns with her, staying just behind her wing, and letting her take point as he watches their six for the ride back.

Starbuck and Apollo make directly for the Orion, their only extraneous motion being the wiggling of their wings—_I'm here. I'm here with you_—when Apollo gives up the aft position to fly beside her. Most of the trip occurs in silence until Patterson directs them, "Starbuck, Apollo, Orion's guidance system is down. Approach starboard landing bay. Hands-on, speed 1-0-0. Checker is red. Call the ball."

"Copy that, Orion," Lee answers. "Starboard landing bay. Hands-on approach. Speed 1-0-0. I have the ball."

Kara echoes his confirmation to Major Patterson, acting much as she would if the Battlestar were the Galactica—staying directly beside Lee even as they land.

The microphone squeals briefly through Lee's headset while he and Kara make their landings in tandem, but Patterson himself stays silent through the confirmation of the mag lock. "Report to the control room," the major orders when the whitening of the canopy screens signals the end of the simulation.

The hatch releases above Lee, and his eyes seek Kara's position. Her canopy lifts beside his, and she removes her helmet, her gold hair darkened with sweat. Lee takes his own helmet in hand, descending the ladder from his viper as Kara disappears from sight to leave hers. Lee jogs over to greet her. She meets him halfway and jumps him, throwing her arms around his neck. Her helmet bobs below his shoulder blade. His hands automatically go around her waist while her toes twist on top of his feet. "That was frakkin' fantastic, Lee!" she exclaims, her words for the flight but her grip of him for the fall that might follow when the reach the Simulation Control Room.

His fingers drift down and squeeze her ass, lifting her awkwardly around the grip on his helmet to try to save his toes. He sets her down on the floor, keeping the closeness she initiated. "I was pretty fantastic wasn't I?" he sets himself up.

"You?" She tucks her chin away to look at his face, letting him direct her towards SimCon with an arm around her shoulders. His helmet bumps against her upper arm as she pokes a finger into his flight suit and blasts, "I was the first one with 10 kills."

"Which you never would have made if I hadn't been there to help you," he reminds her of his assists.

"Please," she smirks, "be serious. If I hadn't spent so much effort trying to keep the nuggets from getting themselves killed, then I would've made all ten kills in the time it took you to make half of that."

"Hey, I had to keep the nuggets from killing themselves, too," Lee reminds her, letting the arm around her shoulders slide down so he can unzip his flight suit to the waist and cool down, "and I did it while tagging nine cylons and giving you two assists," he emphasizes the number, the better to contrast her help on but a single of his kills.

"You are such a sore loser." She pushes her hand flat to his chest but then grabs the open flap of his flight suit to rein him back in to her. "I beat you fair and square, and I'm wondering how I should call in my earnings, Apollo."

Lee squints back at her. "I don't remember setting stakes, Starbuck," he equivocates teasingly. Kara slows the closer they get to SimCon, but Lee pushes onward, remembering Major Patterson's tone and needing to know exactly what he and Kara face as far as sim possibilities. The Major could ruin their chances of flying together in Academy sims if he took their mild disobedience personally.

"Oh come on," she bumps her hip to his hip, "that had to get me something." Kara stops completely outside of the SimCon room door, turning to Lee and trapping his hips so he can't go any farther either. The smug smile painted on her face is too thin a veil to hide the worried apprehension, the apology in her eyes.

Lee lifts an index finger to trace her wrinkled brow. He smiles and shrugs, the better to say,_ frak 'em if they can't take a joke_. When her forehead smoothes, Lee bends into her space to whisper in her ear, "So long as it doesn't involve some grand embarrassment or sex in public, you're on."

When he pulls back away, she's rolling her eyes. "As if I need to call in a bet for that." She leans forward slightly as if to kiss him and prove her point, but then she just swipes her thumb across his bottom lip. He holds her stare until she turns to face the door to SimCon, straightens her shoulders, and crosses the threshold.

**Chapter 13 Dreaming in Color**

When Kara enters SimCon, Lee at her heels, her eyes immediately scan the two-story center complex of Viper Sim B. The wide balcony ringing the room offers almost half again the number of communication consoles as the bottom floor, giving an incredibly convenient one-to-one ratio between the stations and Viper Sims. Still, after living the better portion of the last few years on a Battlestar, the once familiar high ceiling in the center of the room only seems to be a waste of space.

Kara's eyes fall on Patterson, and the Major is exactly where she'd expected him to be, on the first floor seated at one of the larger, center consoles available only to instructors. She steels her spine and marches over. Lee keeps to her side—as much her wingman as if they were still in the air.

The Major doesn't look up when they halt in front of him. Instead, his eyes shift to another screen, which tallies the scores of their Independent and Mutual Flights. He makes them wait longer while he types in additional data. Kara can only ponder what he's saying about them as the screen he's using faces away from them. She shifts on her feet, trying to stay as still as Lee is beside her while they wait. Finally, Patterson straightens, shifting his eyes from Kara to Lee and back again.

"Although the simulation had to be cut short," the Major looks hard at Starbuck, "the data was easily adjusted to the abbreviated perimeters." Kara's lips tighten at Patterson's bombast, but she doesn't dare interrupt for fear of making any reprimand worse. "In the first simulation," Patterson activates a large flat screen beside her, but she keeps her eyes on the Major, knowing Lee will tell her if she misses something, "you ignored the cylon trap and remained with your wingman, earning extra points for the accelerated conclusion. Negative points for flying too close to the Battlestar Orion, but that was balanced by the perfect execution of a Narrow Twist and concurrent Panacean Circles."

Kara raises her eyebrows, trying hard not to glance toward Lee. Patterson gave them extra points for showboating? Hard-ass, by-the-book, worse-than-Lee-at-his-most-anal _Patterson?_

"Two of the alert fighters were hit in the second sim," the Major continues, "but neither one severely, so you earned bonus points for keeping your squadron alive and also for the number of independent kills you each made. Negative points for adherence to radio and pursuit protocols. However," the blond-haired major looks away from her and Lee to the screen she still can't see, "as the primary objectives in each sim were completed swiftly and with no loss of life, I am inclined to subtract the fewest points to indicate sub-minor and minor infractions respectively to these categories. As a result, Starbuck's Independent Score is Upper Blue range, and," he pauses and glances at Starbuck, his invisible eyebrows coiling along with her nerves, "your Mutual Score is Lower Indigo."

Kara's chest swells. She bites her lip, but she can't keep a grin from appearing—anything above Green Levels gets them a free ticket—a priority pass—into Viper Sims, but to score an Indigo—Frak! Kara gives in and finally looks to Lee, who's grinning beside her. The consternation in his eyes is buried underneath the thrill for their Mutual Score but still present. Kara tightens her lips, empathizing with his unease, knowing the score Patterson gives Lee will decide the future of their sim time together. She clears her throat. "And Apollo's Independent?" she asks when Lee stays obediently silent.

The Major squints at Kara before turning to Lee. "I was highly impressed with the leadership skills you displayed, Lieutenant," Patterson clears his throat, eyes flicking quickly in Kara's direction, "especially considering your wingman." Kara lifts her chin but is too curious of what Patterson will say to interrupt. "I'm giving you Lower Indigo for your Independent."

"Lower In—" Lee starts beside her.

"That makes you All-Indigo!" Kara whoops. "Way to go, Lee!" Kara reaches out an excited hand to him before she thinks, but Lee grabs it, squeezing it tightly before letting go.

"Thank—thank you, sir," he stutters, his huge grin full of pride and disbelief.

Patterson doesn't immediately reply, and Kara's too busy watching the glow of Lee's expression to turn and look at the Major. She's still looking at Lee when his gaze narrows, shifting his view to something within himself—cutting himself off from her. She bites her lip again—harder, but this time it's not to contain a smile.

"Congratulations," Patterson offers and clears his throat sedately, forcing Kara's eyes back to him.

"Thank you, sir," she leads, and Lee echoes the sentiment again directly afterward.

The Major shifts his feet as if about to release the data to their records and dismiss them to the locker rooms finally, but then he hesitates. "That's your third Indigo, your first in Mutual if I recall correctly, Lt. Thrace."

"Yes, sir," she nods, well remembering each and every one.

Patterson nods back, slowly, still evaluating. "And it's the first time you ceded mission command to anyone of your own rank when no Lead Pilot was assigned."

"Sir?" Kara straightens. The unnatural evenness of the Major's tone sets her on edge as much as Lee's silent observance of the room beside her.

"I can only assume that the two of you conferred on this beforehand as Lt. Adama took Lead, and you followed without any discussion over coms," Major Patterson concludes, but whether he is somehow suspicious or simply assessing, Kara can't say. "I'd like to see how you perform in other circumstances," he leads without actually offering a new date with the sims.

"Yes, sir," Kara quickly jumps on the opportunity, though Lee is still confoundedly quiet beside her. "We can be here tomorrow at the same time…or at a different time," she nearly trips over her words to get back in the sims with Lee.

"Excellent." Patterson picks up a small computer tablet, presumably checking schedules. "0615 here again tomorrow then."

"Yes, sir!" Kara and Lee respond in tandem.

"And by the way, Lieutenants," the Major directs before walking off, "a word to the wise. While I can appreciate your frustration with the sims, it's not a good idea to question your superiors' decisions—even obliquely—without giving them an alternative."

"Yes, sir," Kara responds right away, but the Major is looking to Lee, as if it'd been him and not Kara who'd been smarting off in the cockpit.

Lee holds Patterson's stare a long moment, almost long enough to cause Kara to jump in and say something before the Major thinks Lee insubordinate, but then Lee blinks rapidly and licks his lips, "I'll keep that in mind, sir," he says.

"Good," Patterson answers back, still holding Lee's stare until he looks down to Kara. "I'll see you in 'Theory, Thrace."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," she responds to his retreating form. When the door to SimCon closes behind Patterson, Kara sets her smile on Lee. "Sim time again tomorrow, Apollo."

"Yeah," he nods back absently.

"I thought he was going to Red-Level us for sure, and then to give you All-Indigo…"

"Mmm," he only hums this time, his eyes shifting between the screen with their scores to somewhere along the SimCon balcony.

Kara tries to follow his line of sight, but there's nothing on the upper deck at this early hour except a few overachieving underclassman working on their programming. She looks back to Lee and nudges his shoulder with hers. "Come on, do you think you can dredge up just a little excitement?" she teases, but the worry forming deep down in her gut starts to congeal.

His gaze clicks onto hers in an instant. He grabs her hand quickly, pulling her into motion toward the exit. "I've got an idea," he shoots over her question to address her unspoken concern. "I need to work out some details, but ask me about it tonight, OK?"

Nodding, Kara lets her breath go—mostly. "OK. I've got classes and Officer Targets all day and then Helo again at 1730, but dinner?" She releases his grip to open the door to SimCon, holding it for him while they go through.

"Yeah. Brew Pub, 1900?" he asks with one last backward glance into SimCon's upper level.

"That sounds good," Kara agrees. "Gods, how I've missed onion rings," she exhales with a near moan.

Lee grins. "I'll be sure to bring the after-dinner mints."

"Jackass." She swats his head.

"And yet," he pulls her close into his side with an arm low about her hips, "you still lay claim to me." And just like that, Lee's focus is wholly back on her.

"Eh," she shrugs one shoulder, "you give great head."

He halts their progress to face her and speaks softly, "You putting in a request for later?" He licks his lips three times—she knows because she doesn't take her eyes off of them.

"Yeah," she whispers back, "a request and an offer." Her tongue darts out of her mouth, as if it could reach his moistened lips across the way.

Lee takes a deep breath through his nose. He clears his throat and shifts, stepping back slightly and glancing around, probably to see if anyone's watching them.

Kara steps forward to angle her words to his ear, "I told ya you were gonna need that cold shower this morning," she taunts and steps off toward the locker rooms. Lee bounces into motion on her six, and she knows he's using her body as a shield to conceal his lower half from roaming eyes. She lets him hide behind her, smirking back over her shoulder at his embarrassment. She rolls her eyes at the sound of his carefully measured steps, designed to keep him just behind her. He sighs heavily after she shakes her head in amusement, and he takes a running step to catch up to her, walking the rest of the way beside her.

B

S

G

After changing out of their flight suits, Lee bids Kara goodbye in front of the locker rooms. The ease of her words, the confidence of her smile when she walks out the front door and he heads back towards the center complex of Viper Sim B almost makes him wonder if she has an idea of what he's up to. He decides, as he hustles back into SimCon, that his thinking is too much in-the-box for Starbuck to be on the same track.

When he walks back through the door, Lee immediately scans the upper deck of the complex, seeking the cadet he spied earlier—the one with the thick indigo border marking the edge of her badge. His eyes skim over the consoles to zero in on the rectangular ID, still draped prominently above her console. His gaze drifts over to its owner, her short brown ponytail flipping back and forth between two screens as she crosschecks the data strings running across both. Instead of approaching her directly, Lee heads for the primary computer in the center of the room, printing out a new temporary badge, rimmed by a solid line of indigo. Though they share a swath of color, Lee's ID, unlike the cadet's, is a true square to indicate his viper pilot status.

Once it's finished printing and laminating, Lee pulls his dogtags over his head and forces the latch to accept the still-warm ID. For just a moment, he notes the stark outline the indigo makes around the thin metal, swipes his thumb across it just to see the contrasting colors. He nearly smiles but then narrows his focus, gathering the chain in his palm and thumbing the dogtags when he shoves away from the main computer console towards the stairs.

Lee takes the steps two at a time to close the distance to the underclassman. As he walks, he eyes that indigo border that helped him separate her from everyone else in SimCon B. He bites his lip, shifts his gaze to the light color of her hair, trying to figure out a way inside her head. He's struck suddenly by the realization that while there's no proper way to start recruiting for his new project, approaching some random cadet programmer just because she's got a thick indigo line around her name has to be the most frakkin' idiotic way to proceed. His face pinches involuntarily at the thought. Nonetheless, when he's half a meter from her position, his mouth opens, and he speaks, "Excuse me, Cadet."

She startles, nearly jumping in her seat. "Sir!" She turns to look at him for a moment, perplexed. If she'd worn glasses, Lee supposes she'd have pushed them farther up along the bridge of her nose. Belatedly, she tries to move a pile of equipment from her lap in order to stand.

"Don't get up." He waves her down, checks her uniform for her name. "I don't mean to bother you in the middle of a project, Henderson." He smiles politely, hoping to convey interest but not too much interest.

"Not at all, sir." She resettles in her seat, glances around the room when Lee doesn't speak again right away. She clears her throat, "Is there something I can do for you, sir?" The pitch of her voice rises high on her question.

He points to the dual computer screens, "Is that your own code you're writing, or is it one of the tom-com exercises?"

"Tom-com. They won't let us write our own code until we've finished three semesters, sir."

Unconsciously, he licks his lips. "Your project looks a little detailed for the usual programming assignment."

"Yes, well," her shoulders roll back in a superior sort of wiggle, "I asked the dean for a special dispensation to begin work on the upper division assignments once I completed my sophomore levels."

"You must be pretty advanced," Lee leads the conversation. "I bet you do a lot of original programming in your own time."

The Cadet opens her mouth on a wide grin, but shuts it as abruptly a second later. Lee thinks she's actually biting her tongue to keep from bragging. "I dabble," she finally lets herself say.

Lee's eyes gleam in satisfaction at the admission, at the pieces clicking into place.

She gives a fake little cough. "Was there something you needed, sir?"

"Yes, actually." Lee pauses, looks behind him, and takes the empty chair beside her, pulling it closer to begin his conversation. "I'm a viper pilot." He watches her expression carefully. "I need a programmer."

"Sir," her eyes scan the room again, and she whispers, "I'm not allowed to rig the sims." She sits up straighter. "And—and I wouldn't."

"No, no!" Lee raises one hand, keeping the other locked around his ID. "I would never ask anyone to do that for me. I would never do that," he assures her. Her wary expression eases slightly, and Lee watches as her curiosity returns with the tilt of her head. He leans closer. "I want to make the cylons smarter."

"What?" her brows lift as she squeaks.

"In the sims." He points to the door and the machines beyond it.

Cadet Henderson shakes her head. "Why?" She drops her eyes and clears her throat. "Sir."

Lee notes the belated address, and he studies her face afresh. For the first time, he sees the lack of lines across her features, the clear set on her face. No one in the Fleet—in _his _Fleet—is as unburdened as she is—not even the children. Biting his lip with a grimace, he peeks at the two computer screens in front of the Cadet, at the lines of code, stagnant for the moment, but moveable, malleable. His eyes rocket back to hers, his mind returning to his purpose. "The sims we have now…" he trails off for effect, "it's like somebody took footage of the cylon battles from forty years ago and kept plugging them back in with very little variation to show for it in between." He puts his elbows on his knees and leans just a little farther into her space, a little further into her confidence. "We can make a better sim."

"_We _can?" she stresses.

Lee nods once, decisively. "We can."

Cadet Henderson huffs out a long breath and leans away. "No offense, Lieutenant—"

"Adama," he offers even as her gaze peers downward to check his uniform. "Lee Adama," he says, just realizing he hasn't given her his name. He'd stopped introducing himself to anyone in the Fleet ages ago—everyone had already known who he was.

"Lieutenant Adama," she repeats his name slowly, in measured tones, "what you're talking about is creating new perimeters for _all_ of the cylon-related aeronautical simulations, and one programmer and one pilot do not have the ability to change all of that overnight."

"I don't need overnight, Cadet," he says, and he doesn't. For one, the Fleet's pilots would be significantly better equipped to handle the cylon threat if a new wide-scale program could be launched in two—even three years. He nods as if to confirm his own unspoken assessment. "We can do this. It's not a two-man job," he verifies. "But _we_ can get it started. _We_ can be the ones to have been there from the beginning—your programs, my flying. It _is_ possible." He uses the same tone he's cultivated on a thousand impossible missions.

Cadet Henderson bites her lip, leans towards Lee like a fish on a hook. "It would be amazing if we could change all of the cylon simulators." She brings her fingers to her mouth as she thinks aloud. "Just imagine the complexity of the code. It would be incredible," she whispers.

"It _will_ be," Lee assures her. He watches her for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth unseeing, as if reading and evaluating some invisible source. Finally, the line of her mouth pinches, and she shakes her head regretfully.

"As much as I'd like to help you," she looks to Lee with wide—and very young—brown eyes, "it's a pipe-dream, sir. We can't just write new sims without raw data. At the very least, to get started we'd need to access the Raider Sims in the Primary Sim Complex, and you can't do that unless—"

Lee lifts his tags between them, letting the shaped metal and the line of his new badge fall down the chain with gravity. "Unless, you're All-Indigo," he says with a satisfied smile.

"Well," his new programmer stalls, her greedy eyes glued to his badge. She licks her lips, shifting her gaze to his. "Looks like we're dreaming in color, sir."


	6. Part 6

See first installment for headers and disclaimer.

**Chapter 14 Phantom Pains**

The Academy's student union is bustling with underclassmen when Lee walks in just before 1400. He checks the crowd, his eyes going for the small set of tables outside the coffee shop Zak had preferred once upon a time.

"Lee!" His brother's voice guiding his eyes, Lee looks left and spots Zak at a small, square table. Its surface is covered in books and papers, and there are two coffees balanced near the edge, a pile of cream and sugars between them. Lee smiles, walks over.

"Hey Zak." Lee sits across from his brother.

"Got you a coffee—two creams, two sugars," Zak says almost proudly, pointing to the tiny packets.

"Thanks." Lee goes right for the java but bypasses the additives. At Zak's furrowed brow and pointed chin he says, "I've actually just been drinking it black lately." He scratches his ear and takes a sip of the steaming beverage.

Zak assimilates the information and glances to his mound of opened and discarded packets before looking back to Lee. Then he bites his lip and nods. He looks up to Lee and gestures with the hand not holding his own cup. "Hey, sorry I couldn't meet you for lunch earlier."

Lee swallows his mouthful of coffee, waves off the concern. "Don't worry about it." Eyes on the lid, he takes another sip because—damn it's fresh. Lee licks his lips, looks up to Zak across the table. "Classes come first. I'm just glad you could take a coffee break." Another swallow accentuates his point. "Mmm."

"Should I leave you two alone?" Zak asks, and when Lee looks back to his brother, Zak's got a devilish grin across his face.

Lee lifts his brows and one corner of his mouth. "Oh, you think you're funny?"

Zak's eyes roll upward, pretending to consider. Then he nods. "Pretty much."

Lee chuffs, gaze stuck on his brother, watching Zak's grin reassert itself. He grins back.

"So I called you yesterday." Zak takes a sip of his own coffee.

Lee's forehead wrinkles. "Really?"

"Yeah," Zak confirms, brown eyes following the line of Lee's arm to the hand wrapped around the Styrofoam cup. "Like three times. It just rang and rang. No answer, not even the machine. So it was on, but you wouldn't pick up."

"Hmm," he nods. "I left the phone in Starbuck's truck for a few hours yesterday." He winces as he recalls. "Actually, I guess it was more like the whole day. I saw that I'd had missed calls, but I thought they were all from her."

"What? You didn't think I'd call you?" Zak leans on the table between them.

Lee pauses on bringing the cup back to his lips. He sets it back on the table, leaving it there when he leans back into his chair. "No," he whispers, "It honestly never occurred to me that you might call." He huffs a laugh, shaking his head at the outdated nature of his thinking. "I guess I have to start thinking that way again."

"Again?" Zak demands, and when Lee looks up, his brother's nearly squinting in confusion. "You're my brother. You're in town. Why wouldn't it occur to you that I'd call?"

"That's a good question." Lee smiles, grabbing for his drink again to keep his hands busy. "I don't know." And then he laughs because he's drinking fresh frakkin' coffee with his brother at the Academy Student Union on frakkin' Picon.

And then Zak is smiling back and chuckling back. He was always so eager to be happy, always filled with joy at the slightest provocation. Their shared laughter dies down, and Lee holds his brother's stare as Zak studies him. Finally, Zak shakes his head. "What's going on with you Lee?" And he's squinting again when he asks, but the smile is still on his face.

Lee shakes his head. He squints slightly back at his brother—a mirror image he realizes—his own grin far from fading as he remembers suddenly that they've always shared that inquisitive expression. Just spending time here with his brother, getting to know him again in tangible moments rather than just memories—it's so much more than he ever thought to ask for. "What do you mean?"

Zak raises his eyebrows. "What do I mean?" He tucks his chin, turns away then looks back to Lee. "You cancel your trip to Tauron at the last minute—the trip you've already paid for and that you've been planning for the last 6 months. You tell mom you're coming to see me, but I've seen you exactly twice since you got here because instead, you've been in the presence of one Kara Thrace, callsign Starbuck, almost constantly since you got back to Picon. And you've been different, Lee. I—You've been, I don't even know—just different."

Lee looks at Zak's face to his brother's searching expression, and as much as a part of him aches to regain the time lost with his brother, to speak of all the things that happened—or maybe that never happened—Lee knows he never will, never can. Even if Zak were to believe, Lee can't tell his brother that he'd buried him, mourned him.

"And then last night I got a call from Reaper," Zak continues.

Lee's eyes narrow at that. "And what did she tell you?"

"Nothing!" Zak shakes his head, eyes wide and dark brows lifted. "Nothing, Lee, I swear. I don't know anything about whatever the frak you're into. But she told me you might need someone to talk to and before that I couldn't get in touch with you, and I was just worried," Zak concludes, his eyes so sincere Lee has to look away. "I thought if you didn't answer your phone today, I'd try your girlfriend."

At that label for Starbuck, Lee looks up back up to his brother, jaw locked in place. Zak's young, unlined face stares back at him, both pleading and prodding. And Lee has to look away from Zak's open palm and searching eyes before he can slowly relax his bite. "You know that Kara," Lee tries to clear his throat of the words that don't seem want to come out, "Kara's not my girlfriend."

Zak smirks back at Lee. "Whatever. Stop trying to change the subject."

Lee wrinkles brow. "What the hell are we talking about?"

Zak exhales heavily from across the table, the shift of his shoulders speaking to his impatience. "Why the frak is Reaper so worried about you?" He prods again, "What happened?"

Lee eases his posture. This he can tell Zak. "Alright here's the thing," he leans into the table, and Zak copies the move. "I'll tell you what's going on, but it stays between you and me."

"Of course," Zak nods immediately, his cheeks flushed with pleasure and suddenly Lee remembers how Zak had always pried into his life to get into his confidences. He can't believe that he used to hate that.

"I turned down War College," Lee confides.

Zak's eyes go wide. "But—" he starts. His mouth opens. Shuts. Opens again. "You're frakkin' with me," the words come out in a rush.

Lee shakes his head. "No. Actually I'm not." He takes a sip of his cooling coffee and watches as Zak's eyes widen impossibly further. "I asked Reaper to give me the position at Headquarters."

"No!" Zak whispers, clearly scandalized. "No!" he shakes his head.

Lee nods. "Yeah, Zak. I did."

Zak's heavy exhalation ruffles the loose papers between the brothers. "Wh—Headquarters?" again he rattles his head. "Lee? I—what? Are you out of your frakkin' mind?"

He smiles at his brother's probing—so very Zak. "No." Lee angles his chin rather than fully shaking his head. "I'm dead serious." Looking at Zak, Lee's smile broadens despite the subject matter. "Next Monday, I'll be fighting with the rest of the GiMPs and pushing my way through Yellow Corridor."

"Why?" This time Zak's question is a hurt whisper. "I thought, I mean the way you talked about vipers—this isn't a way to get back at Dad is it?" Zak queries sharply. "Because Lee there are definitely better ways."

"No," Lee denies the theory, checking Zak's fluid wriggling across the table, trying to gauge his reaction. "This isn't about Dad at all."

"But to give up War College?" Zak shifts in his seat again, his youthful features etched in a sort of timeless confusion. For a long second, Lee almost wishes his brother had a black eye or ragged scar across his cheek, anything to deny that heartbreaking perfection. "Who does that, Lee? Nobody, that's who. Anybody who's offered War College jumps at the chance because it's the fast track. It's a huge honor and you—we were all—" Zak keeps interrupting himself. "You deserve it Lee. If anybody should go to War College it's you." Zak points across the table with his whole hand. "You're all about strategy and tactics. You deserve to climb the ranks and have your own ship someday, not to be planet bound."

"Zak, I…" Lee shakes his head. "I've thought it through very carefully, Zak." He says his brother's name again as if to make the man in front of him seem more real. "I chose this, and I want it."

"Why? Why would you—"

Lee searches brown eyes so like their father's. "It was just the right choice for me." He speaks with the utter confidence of knowing that this decision will save Zak. "I'm really happy with it."

"Is this about your girlfriend?" Zak persists with the term.

"Kara?" Lee says even though he's just denied that identification with Starbuck. "I—" he shakes his head suddenly as the direction of the conversation obliterates the once rigid boundaries Lee'd kept between his thoughts of Kara and his love for Zak.

Zak rolls his eyes at Lee's open mouthed stuttering. "Girlfriend, frak buddy, spiritual advisor—whatever she is to you, she's going to be an instructor, so that means she'll be bound to the Academy. If you're stuck at Headquarters, then you'll stay in close proximity to each other." Lee's still shaking his head as Zak finishes laying out his theory. "Are you going to marry her or something?"

"Ah. Um…" The word—whatever Lee started to say—disintegrates to ash in his mouth. "Zak I, I can't—I, I don't even." Lee's eyes fall to the haphazard piles of books and papers between them, catching Zak's naked left hand laying on them, and then he can't speak at all.

"Hey, easy." Zak rests his unadorned fingers atop Lee's. "She's not asking for a proposal." He adds mischievously, "as far as I know. I was just wondering what was going through your head."

Lee exhales heavily. It's almost a laugh because of how wrong Zak's assumption is. "I guess nothing much is going through my head," he lies so hugely because as always, it's just the opposite: there's too much on Lee's mind. "There are a lot of reasons I'm doing this, Zak, but what it all comes down to is that accepting the position at Headquarters is the best thing I can do."

Zak holds his gaze after Lee finishes speaking, and Lee knows by the intensity of his stare, that this conversation isn't over yet, but that Zak's at least accepted his explanation for now. Lee breaks first, eyes going to the nearest clock for the time.

When he looks back to his brother, Zak's followed his lead and flipped his wrist to check his watch. "Crap, I hate to do this to you, but I gotta go. I've got the first semester dorm meeting and someone leaked that Kritchlow would be there."

Lee winces in sympathy, watching his brother stand and take a last sip of his coffee. "Can you meet me and Kara for dinner later?" He asks, watching the familiar motions of his brother in a rush.

Zak shakes his head while collecting his books, "Sorry, I already promised Rachel. But maybe tomorrow?"

"Sounds good," Lee nods and waves him off. "Oh, and if Kritchlow's going to be at the dorm meeting, you can be damn sure he's going to do a spot room inspection."

"Crap," Zak stalls, "you think?"

"Oh, I know."

"Dammit," he sighs. "OK, thanks for the heads up. I'll see you later."

Lee reaches out before Zak can fully pass him. He softly grasps and quickly releases his brother's forearm. "Love you, Zak."

Zak clears his throat and quickly glances around the tables next to them. "Yeah, um," he scratches the back of his head and squints, double checking a table with two pretty coeds seated side by side. "Well, I'll just see you later, Lee," he mumbles.

"Yeah," Lee smiles, lips stretching farther than his muscles can remember. "Yeah, you will," he nods and breathes deeply, just barely catching the warm scent of peppermint, spice, and youth under the heavy aroma of coffee. Unbidden, his eyelids blink rapidly, forcing his gaze downward and back to his cup of java.

"And, you know I um…you know," Zak clears his throat. "You, too, Lee," Zak finally whispers and quickly grips the edge of Lee's shoulder in a self conscious little squeeze before running out the room towards the exit behind Lee. Lee doesn't turn to watch him scurry out of the building. Instead, he leans back in his chair, feeling his brother's phantom grip as he slowly sips the rest of his coffee.

**Chapter 15 Grip**

Kara straightens her blouse for the fifth time as she approaches the double doors of Brewster's Public Drinking House and Eatery—the Brew Pub. She rarely ever wears the light blue top; it's too fragile for someone like her. The wispy fabric is easily ripped, and Kara always has to concentrate on her movements when she dons the low-necked shirt so she doesn't tear it wide open. She tries not to consider the symmetry, but the truth is she hasn't dressed this way for a date since Zak, who'd always liked her more when she was hard than when she was soft, anyway. She bites her lip when she reaches the solid wooden doors of the pub, pauses for half a second on the threshold with her hand on the brass handle.

"Frack it!" she curses aloud and throws the door open with a vicious twist of her wrist. She lets the anger rise in her as she searches for Apollo's sorry ass among the dark wood of the tables and booths scattered about the restaurant. Her breath catches involuntarily as her eyes fall on his shock of black hair and the pure blue button-he's up left open at his throat. She steels her jaw and marches towards him. She notes with satisfaction the way his mouth drops open when he spots her. He stands abruptly as she nears his table.

"Aren't you going to say hello, Apollo?" the smirk in her tone gets a response at once.

"Hey," his voice is low. He licks his lips. "I—I—" he clears his throat to halt his stuttering. "I got you a beer," he finally says, his eyes dropping down several times to scan her figure.

She smirks at his preoccupation. "A real one, I hope, and not that Leonian Ale everyone in third year used to drink?"

His eyes shoot to hers, and his brow furrows for a half second. She bites her lip, watching and waiting to see if he shuts down.

"No," he shakes his head as if refusing her unvoiced fear. The smile he offers is tentative but open. It's the best thing she's seen all day. "I know what you like." He doesn't try to pull out her chair for her, but he waits until she sits before lowering himself into his own chair. It's not something he'd usually do with her, not something she'd usually want him to do, but tonight it gives her a rush of gooseflesh that slides against her thin shirt sleeves deliciously.

Kara licks her lips, wishes she could pose herself as brazenly as she wants to in her seat, but is too afraid to rip the shirt's delicate fabric. Instead, she just raises her eyebrows in challenge, quirks her head just so. "Sure about that, are you, Flyboy?"

He reaches towards her and grabs her hand from where it rests in her lap. With his other hand, he skims up inside her loose sleeve. He has to feel every frakkin' goosebump. "More and more every minute."

Her breath catches, at his words or the vulnerability he's just discovered or both. She yanks her arm away from his. She's about to do something stupid. She can feel it.

"What does it mean to be All-Indigo, Kara?" he asks her before she can cuss or bitch or insult her way out of her embarrassment.

"What?" she answers harshly, taken aback and still off balance.

"All-Indigo comes with special privileges even if you're not a student at the Academy anymore." He leans back in his seat, still smiling easily, and wraps his palm around the neck of his beer.

"Right," she shrugs, still belligerent but echoing his posture, her back against her chair, "you get all-hours access to the sims, so?"

Lee leans towards her again, a hint of that same open smile across his face. "You get something else," he leads, "something much more important."

Kara feels her eyebrows narrowing, in curiosity as much as irritation. "Apollo—" she shakes her head at him, but he cuts her off.

"Access to the Raider sims."

She bites her bottom lip, not knowing where he's going, but feeling the weight of his words. "I repeat—so?" she tries to keep mocking him, but her tone is more tentative.

He sets his beer on the table, and she watches the excitement build through his body—in the twitching of his hands, the grin moving in barely controlled waves across his face, the sheer delight in his eyes. "So with access to the Raider sims, we can rewrite the code for the entire system." He eyes around the room and very carefully doesn't whisper, "We can use our knowledge of how Cylons really behave in the future to create better sims."

"Lee," Kara starts and stops. She purses her lips, not used to trying to be the voice of reason. "Lee, how are you and I supposed to write computer code, especially something of that level—"

He waves his hand between them. "I've got our first programmer already. She and I were in Cylon Central all afternoon."

She searches his eyes, unable to understand the source of his excitement. "OK, so you have one programmer—a student programmer I'm betting. How do one programmer and one pilot rewrite the entire frakkin' sims programs for Fleet Academies across the Colonies?" she ends in a harsh whisper, half leaning over the table.

"It's not as though it's going to remain a two-man project for long," Lee counters. "Once you get your All-Indigo status, too—" and oh how Kara flushes with pleasure as he speaks of such as an inevitability— "we'll have two pilots. Then when word gets out as to what we're doing, we'll gather more programmers, and it'll keep growing from there."

"And then what, Lee?" she barely waits until he finishes his thought, but she's sure she interrupts him anyway. "Even if it's possible to actually rewrite the program, which I don't know that I believe it is, it's going to take all your time to do, and in the end it's not even going to help us. When the Cylons get into the Fleet network—"

Lee holds out his hand between them again. It's a slight gesture, but enough to cut her off completely. "We're at Picon Fleet Academy, Kara," he begins softly, so sure. "Headquarters for the entire Colonial Fleet is less than 20 klicks from the sims we're going to be working in. I start my assignment at Headquarters in less than a week. I'll be spending all my time either schmoozing with officers there or working on this sim project. It's one frak of an ambitious idea, Kara. It's going to get noticed."

"You can't know that. You can't possibly know that, and you're going to end up wasting all of your time on the chance that the brass will take notice of some dinky little student project—" she lets herself be interrupted by the bare shake of his head.

"Two things: First, it's not a chance, Kara." He tilts his head, his confidence unshakable. "It's a fact."

She eyes him—the square certainty of his shoulders, the focused gleam in his eye. "You know something," she suddenly recognizes.

He grins all-out. "I know this is going to happen."

She shakes her head, "How could you—" and nearly bites her tongue with the realization, "That's the way it happened the first time."

He waggles his eyebrows at her deduction but pauses abruptly. Then he clears his throat and lowers his chin. "Well… sort of."

"Sort of?" she echoes, crossing her arms over her chest, but instead of ebbing away at her confidence, Lee's hesitation makes the plan seem more real, more reachable. "What do you mean 'sort of'?" Kara demands.

He squints, speaks slowly, "Well there was," he emphasizes, "a student initiative to revamp the sims at the Aerlon Academy a year before the attacks. Command took something of an interest in them, but ultimately the Admirals halted the project so a civilian contractor could re-establish the validity of the students' flight tests and soft data in order to reproduce their results."

"Frakkin' red tape," she exhales on a huff.

"Yeah," Lee replies, his eyes seeming to pause at her earlobes for a moment before skittering down. The gruff sound of his throat clearing comes across the table again.

"So, um," she feels herself blinking rapidly, somehow off balance again. "So how can, uh, how can we do any better?" Kara tucks her hair behind both ears just in case that really is where he's looking—all that frakking uncomfortable chiffon and he's looking at her ears. Her fingers pause at the small silver studs she'd forgotten she'd put through her lobes.

"Well," his eyes shift between her eyes and the tiny silver beads, "as long as we don't mind a bare minimum of credit for the new system, we shouldn't have a problem getting it by the brass. And second," he makes her wait while he takes a breath, "second, getting the new sims into place isn't our primary goal."

"It's not?" She nods and feels her smile run wild, loving every second of watching him like this, of him knowing this game she could never guess at. "So just why are we going to bother building a new program, practically from scratch if the point of building it isn't to use it?"

He gestures with both hands above the table between them, his eyes intense on hers. "While it's possible the program we build could save lives, it wouldn't save very many." He moves his head once, downward and firmly negative. "We have to stop the Cylons from getting into the Defense Net, and to do that we have to be important enough to the brass that our opinion will matter, or, failing that," he clears his throat, "we have to be close enough to make a difference anyway."

She shakes her head, not quite connecting his reasoning. "What does one have to do with the other?"

"This little project of rebuilding the sims will have us on the fast track. It'll get us to the inward fold of Fleet hierarchy."

"So what you're not saying is that we're really rewriting the sims so we can become a couple of blackbaggers for the Upper Tier." The distaste of the very concept weighs as heavily as the words coming out of her mouth.

"Look, I know—"

"Lee," she interrupts on a huff, not knowing anything to say except his name. She's never known a blackbagger, but she learned with everyone else at the Academy the rigors of the training, the scrutiny into background, the demand to duty, and in between the lines—the absolute loss of self.

"You don't have to do this with me," he grabs her hand to get her attention. "The scrutiny is going to be intense, but the project probably won't even make it anywhere near their radar for another year at the earliest. There's still time."

She looks back toward him, not realizing she'd even glanced away. His eyes are soft, ridiculously earnest, forgiving the sin even as he offers its escape. His face, his shoulders are utterly straight, utterly sincere, but his hand grips hers tightly, unconsciously, on the tabletop between them. For perhaps the first time since she's known him, Kara Thrace knows with absolute certainty that Lee Adama needs her, not as the wingman she's always been to him, but as a friend who can help hold him together. Maybe they can hold each other together if the whole frakkin' plan works. She huffs another sigh and rolls her eyes.

"Please, if one us can make it as a blackbagger, it's obviously going to be me."

"Dreaming again, Kara." A hand reaches behind her ear again, but this time it's not hers. He slows his fingers over the smooth stud in her ear. "We're really going to make this happen, Kara. It's going to work."

"We're going to be working like a couple of temple matrons on the high holy days." Her joke falls a little flat, her voice too breathless to hold sarcasm. She leans her cheek into his palm involuntarily, has to close her eyes, too scared to try to meet his gaze. "Lee—" the way she forces herself to cut off his name almost makes it sound like a question. She feels the muscles in his palm shift, and she stiffens her jaw, preparing to move away first. She would've moved away but his other hand lets go of hers to wrap around the side of her neck. He pulls just enough to encourage her toward him. She feels his breath on her cheek a moment before he leans his forehead against hers.

"I'm glad we're here together," he confides, timber as soft as his hair on her skin.

The words startle her, sounding so much like Lee but nothing like he'd ever say to her. Her hands grab his wrists by reflex, readying to push him away. Waiting to feel any slight, any hesitance from his body in the places where it touches hers. But she can only feel the way his hands have gone soft against her, soft enough to swallow her stiffness. She waits for what feels like a long time, but when she opens her eyes, he's still holding on.


	7. Part 7

See first installment for headers and disclaimer.

**Chapter 16 As Dawn Breaks (so do I)**

The morning starts slowly, before the dawn beams past the second moon and across the water to light Kara's apartment. Lee wakes to see her there next to him, eyes still relaxed in sleep. He breathes his relief out slowly, the subtle tightness in his chest loosening to find her still beside him.

Her hair just barely teases his cheek where it steals onto his pillow. He leaves it be, reaches out a hand to curl a few strands behind her exposed ear. His digits pause at her earlobe, fingering the silver earring she didn't bother to remove last night. He twirls the earring's back by feel, watching the small stud turn a moment before going back to playing with the lobe. As his thumb rolls over it, he notes she has the tiniest mole on her cheek—almost entirely hidden by the flesh of her ear. He's never noticed it before, never been so close and so still at the same time. It makes him smile the way he always has to when her body shares another secret with him.

She doesn't breathe deeply or move or sigh, but his eyes are drawn to hers. The soft light of the streetlamp is enough to find her eyes looking back at him.

She smiles softly, sleepily, lifts a finger to touch, to linger on his lips. Her eyes follow her motion and his just watch as her lashes fall and rise again to greet him.

He kisses that finger resting on his mouth, brings his hand over to rest against hers. He lifts her hand, kisses the fleshy thickness just below her thumb. He shuts his eyes, loving the strength he finds in the muscles and tendons he explores in her hand. Lee nibbles from the ball of her palm up to her fingers, his mouth concentrating on each one in turn. He's not distracted by the sigh he gets from her when he bares his teeth a bit to play with her thumb, but he really likes the gasp that escapes when his playful bites hit her pulse.

His lids lift to see her again. His grip on her hand loosens when he meets her eyes once more. With her brows lifted and her lids partway closed, her eyelashes look darker than the medium brown he knows them to be. The shadows contrast prettily with the shades of green he finds in her eyes this morning.

He sees the corners of her eyes crinkle for a moment, but before he can begin to guess what she's thinking, her hand escapes his, and lifts past his ear to brush through his hair. His fingers drift down her arm while hers play in his hair. He loves the feel as her fingertips push lightly against him. His eyes flutter involuntarily, but he manages to keep his gaze on her, watching her smile, then bite her lip to try to keep it from spreading, then give it up to grin widely.

He moves across his pillow, past it, to share hers. She shuffles backward so they both fit. He kisses the smile on her lips, thinking he can just taste himself there beneath the stale flavor of morning. He wonders if his own lips still smack of her and the night they shared. He hopes she can taste herself there.

Her mouth opens to his, letting his tongue inside to play with fleshy pink and pointed white. The warmth of her mouth and the hand massaging through his hair are the hottest points of contact, but her body rests against his from her naked breasts to her curling toes. She lifts her head slightly, unconsciously, and he knows all he has to do to be inside her again is to tongue his way down just a little. Having his mouth on her neck never fails to make her squirm in pleasure. He really, really likes it when she squirms like that, but his mouth keeps with hers, taking his time, letting himself linger for the first time. They've always been so rushed, so frenzied before. He wants this sweetness, this slowness. He hopes she wants it, too.

His tongue slides up and down hers as he explores her mouth until finally, Kara's tongue curls into his a little, slides up his a little, tickles his when she traps it in her mouth. Her tongue moves into his mouth, and he lets her discover him as he did her. He revels in his own vulnerability, his passive acceptance of her inside him, his constant want of her—lets her taste them all. It feels good to drop his guard, so good that he lets it fall further and further away. But then it falls too far away, much farther than he could have planned.

"Oh, gods, I love you," Lee breathes the words as if they're air. And they hang there between them so lightly it's just as if they are—right up until they both realize what he's said.

He blinks his eyes open—not having realized he'd shut them—and then the predawn's spell is broken. He backs away from her on the bed, the tightness returning to his chest in spades. He can barely breathe. Her hand falls from his hair, still slack from the pleasure they'd been giving each other.

_Oh gods. Oh frakking hell._ He can't even think. Why would he say that? Why would he screw this up again? He finishes sitting up, tears the covers from his legs, needs to get the frak out of here, needs to breathe. _Oh gods!_ Why would he say that to her again?

He's already got his feet on the floor when he hears her scramble up behind him.

"No!" she hollers practically in his ear, throwing both arms around him, one over, one under his shoulders. Her hands lock their grip in the middle of his chest. Her arms pull at his neck for a brief and heavy moment and then her legs are wrapped around his waist from behind.

He doesn't speak—can't say a frakkin' word—just tries to peel her body from his. Tries to unlock her fingers, pry off her grip. He could walk away with her on his back, maybe throw her off when gravity's working against her, too, but he panics, wants her off now, wants to be gone, wants this frak-up to be over with this very second.

His thighs tense, preparing to stand. She must feel it, _has_ to feel his desperation, his absolute need to get away.

"Please," she begs behind him. "I know I frakked it up before, but I'm ready, I swear." Her legs tighten around his waist. "Dammit, Lee, look at me!" Kara yells, her voice thick, but he can't. He really frakkin' can't.

He realizes he's shaking his head when she pleads again, "Look at me, Lee, so I can tell you. Please," her final word is muted as her face turns into his back. He feels the wetness from her face as it meets his bare skin. He shuts his eyes, but he can't look, still can barely breathe. He's just not ready to frak this up again already, but that's exactly what he's done.

"I love you," Kara Thrace whimpers against his back, more brokenly than he's ever heard her.

"Yeah, Kara Thrace loves Lee Adama," he spits through clenched teeth. "I think I heard that one before."

He has to move and so he stands, taking her with him. He pries at her fingers, pulls at her thighs. Finally, violently, he yanks while he twists, and her legs fall. He tries to loosen her hands while his legs are free, but she won't let go. She just jumps up onto his back again. He wants to punch her, wants to hurt her, wants to run her into the wall. His fists clench, and his eyes close, and he just drops limply back down to the bed. His head falls into his hands. He covers his face, sucks in a harsh breath.

"Let me go, Kara," he speaks as flatly as he can, but his voice still shakes on her name, bending as he always does at the force of her.

"No," she declares, sounding almost petulant, her breathing labored just behind his right ear. "No," she says more strongly, more surely. "I'm not going to let you go because I'm never going to let you go." She swallows audibly. "I love you I just—" her voice breaks. "I frakked up before. I always do. I just—I love you. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone in my life—more than Zak, more than Sam, more than I've ever even seen people loving each other," she babbles. "I love you so much, and I look at you and then I look at me, and sometimes it just seems wrong that I would even try. Gods, Lee, you have the worlds in front of you, and I know I'll just have a string of screw ups, and sometimes when I touch you I feel like I'll—" the words break off with a gasp as if she realizes what she's going to say and her body rebels against speaking the idea. "I feel like—" she tries, her very words seeming as tears before she stops partway through them. "I—" not even a word but a whimper.

Lee drops his hands from his face to rest them atop Kara's hands. He shakes his head, eyes still closed, not knowing what to say, but unable to keep himself so apart from her. He holds her hands tightly, hating the silence that allows the foreign sound of her sobs, but still unable to speak. "Shh," he whispers, repeats the hushing noise again and again.

She quiets, leans against Lee's back again. She breathes deeply against him. Her grip around his chest and thighs are lax when she speaks again, her voice almost dull, "Sometimes I think if I touch you people will look at you and see it there as if I—" again she cuts herself off abruptly, simply unable to speak.

"You're afraid someone's going to see where you've touched me," Lee slowly tries to work out aloud. "What do you think they would see Kara? What would they see after you touched me?"

He feels her shrug against his back, feels more wetness from her tears trail down his body. "Dirt," she whispers her answer once the silence stretches. He's unprepared for its starkness.

"Dirt?" he questions, still off guard. "What do you—" he nearly turns to ask before he gets it, "You're afraid that you're going to leave dirt on me when you touch me because, because you think that's what you are?" His tone is incredulous, not quite believing he's got her right.

Lee does turn around then, but Kara folds into herself, even from where she's wrapped around Lee, as if she's too weak and moving from him would take too much effort.

"By Zeus, Kara!" the words are softly spoken, but the curse still makes Kara cringe. He wraps a hand around her cheek, sets the other to her shoulder. "Gods, I'm _so_ proud of you, Kara. And it's not just because you're incredible in the sky." He catches her licking her lips as he speaks. "I love, I love that you care so much about people even though you don't want them to know. And you always make me want to try harder with the way you push yourself and refuse to give up. I like that you don't bother with bullshit, not just of the Colonel Tigh variety, but you don't put up with any sort of equivocation. And then, gods, Kara, when we're together, it's like I'm more than I thought I was. I—" he clears his throat. "You make me—" he huffs, not knowing what to say. "You make me feel like the worlds _are_ in front of me. Even when they were gone."

She leans back into him, holds him so tight. "I love you," she whispers to him again. "I'm really in love with you, Lee."

He sniffs. "I love you, too, Kara. This is, this is kind of it for me," the confession is soft.

"You and me, beyond the Red Line, right?" the words are muffled by his shoulder.

"Yeah, beyond the Red Line, just the two of us," he answers…and he believes.

**Chapter 17 even the gods whisper**

They make love in small ways in what's left of the morning, the loose circle of his arms holding her together, the strength in her thighs letting him fall apart. It is perfection to be so exposed to him, to feel his vulnerability so acutely. They forego sex to touch, to heal each other, to reassure in subtler ways. She fingers the days-old bruise she'd bitten into his arm. He smiles when she skirts the yellowing skin rather than to invite the slightest injury into this stillness they've retaken as morning. They are careful with each other as they've never bothered to be.

An alarm breaks their quiet, though neither one startles at the abrupt sound. She rolls to the side and reaches out her hand. He rolls with her, atop her, extending his arm alongside hers. They reach for the clock. Blindly. Together. They silence it and bring their arms back into themselves, stopping at each other along the way… She skims her hands up his back, feeling the aging marks her fingernails had left days before. His thumb pauses at her ear, tickling around the silver earring that had fascinated him the night before. He kisses her in the renewed quiet.

He turns towards the clock. She doesn't need to turn, too, to know they've got to get up, got places to go and people to be.

He helps her put Starbuck back on while she gets him settled back into Apollo. And they leave for campus, already flying together even before they hit the sims.

B

S

G

"Ehem," Major Patterson clears his throat across the wire in Viper B SimCon. "Apollo, Orion," he announces after their first exercise of the morning concludes, "you have more incoming. Enemy numbers are unknown. They may have advanced jamming technology. Estimate they will be on you in one minute. The alert fighters just launched. They'll make it to your position in fifteen seconds."

"I remember this one," Starbuck says of the oncoming simulation, her voice mellow as it always gets once she merges with her bird.

"Me, too." Lee calls to mind his disastrous attempts to resolve the exercise's jamming issues. He'd relied too much on the failing Dradis, not enough on the eyeballing of his wingman, a War College buddy that followed him back to the academy for a weekend when Lee'd gone to see Zak. "Break to two klicks. High/low and keep an eye out for the nuggets."

Immediately Kara gains maybe eighty vertical meters from their elliptical and strays the prescribed two kilometers from his side.

"I've got three signals on Dradis," she tells him. "Dead ahead. Waiting for visual."

Lee checks his periphery and spots the telltale afterburners of a raptor as it makes a wide turn on his starboard side, coming around to follow him. His brow furrows. He wiggles the stick out of instinct: it's just enough to keep the bullets from slicing through his nose. "Son of toaster!" he accidentally yells into the mic, rolling just in time to see a rogue viper spiking a missile up his z-axis.

"Frak he changed the sim!" Kara hollers as she simultaneously discovers the problem herself. "Can you say intercept protocol?" she directs to whatever virtual bird pissed her off.

"On me, Kara," he calls out to her, dodging the missile and the extraneous gunfire from the wild viper on his tail. A glance up and over and he spots Starbuck struggling with her own rogue viper and accompanying missile roughly two hundred meters from his position. There are no blips at all on the board in front of him, despite the very visual confirmation of the mad viper and its rocket loose on his six. He winces as he checks the heat seeker on his tail. He's still got the edge, but it's slowly closing the distance. "Dradis is a meatball," he tells Starbuck.

"No shit, Seamus!" Her voice has that gathered edge it always does when the knife starts cutting closer.

"Orion this is Apollo, we've got friendly fire and possible incoming bandits. Tell the alert fighters to fall back!" No response comes across the line, so he opens up the channel. The sims' cylons will be able to hear, but he has no choice. "Orion, Apollo. We're about to have a friendly fire incident. Call back the alert fighters!"

"Acknowledged, Apollo," Major Patterson answers. "Get off this channel and onto Red Protocol."

"Starbuck," Lee only has to say her name once, and she comes back to him immediately.

"Red Protocol, fine!" she finishes in a huff before he can make the order.

Lee presses two buttons with his left hand initiating the protocol, then watches cautiously as the viper that had been following him zips back towards the Orion, offering no help whatsoever with the heat seeker on his six. The missile had gotten closer to him while he was still dodging the gunfire, too close now for him to invert and shoot without risking the debris slicing through his canopy.

"Am I the only one with a viper missile on my ass?" Starbuck's voice comes through harsh and fast over the new channel.

"Nope. Geminon Loop?" he suggests.

"Is that your viper in my starboard window?"

He wiggles his wings.

"OK it's you. Geminon Loop," she confirms. "Ready, ready—break!"

Apollo glides away from Starbuck, knowing she's doing the same behind him. He arcs into a huge loop, lining up nose to nose with Starbuck's viper once it's visible again. Her bird gets larger and larger in the screen of his canopy.

"Tell me we're not playing chicken." He tries to add some irritation in his voice but doesn't think she's buying it when he hears that laugh, a warmth as distinct as the distant shock of color—her face—swimming closer and closer to him in the sea of black and gray.

"Don't you dare say you're not thrilled being seat-of-your-pants here with me."

"I'm not," he speaks as flatly as possible while maneuvering his undercarriage to match with Kara's.

"Liar!" she screams jubilantly just as they pass one another.

Lee quickly assesses the distance to the missile on Kara's six before pulling up into the second arc of the Geminon Loop in a circle perpendicular to the first, letting the two missiles strike one another. The missiles' primitive inertial dampeners, which stabilize the explosives in space, serve to cancel, rather than compound, their mutual payloads. He waits for the lightshow to clear and looks for Starbuck in his window. Her viper twists and turns, a reflection of his, to avoid the debris as they each close the distance that lay between them.

Lee rechecks his viper's status and calls out to Kara, "Damage report?"

"Negative, Apollo. But Dradis is back."

He eyeballs her position beside him and notes that his instruments agree with him again. "Confirm Dradis," he comes back to her, then addresses the Major calling the shots. "Orion this is Apollo, what happened to the cylons?"

"The cylons appear to have left shortly after launching their Dradis-affecting weapon at us. Be advised that Dradis may still be compromised. We are reviewing the data now."

"Orion, what about the alert fighters?" Starbuck chimes in. "They just used us for target practice."

"The alert fighters have been warned of the Dradis malfunction." Patterson's language is much too formal for effective battlestar communications. It irks Lee. "Your vipers appeared as raiders on their screens."

"Ha!" Kara laughs, and Lee can almost see her rolling her eyes. "As if a viper looks anything like a raider!"

"Starbuck," he scolds mildly, though he agrees with her assessment.

"Come on, you know I'm right," she goads. "It's a completely unrealistic scenario! All a real pilot has to do is look out the canopy."

The Major continues as if Starbuck hadn't spoken: "We should be able to modify Red Protocol and patch you through to the other vipers in just a moment."

Lee and Kara are silent for a moment, and Lee, at least, is taken aback. Kara is the one to ask the question on both their minds first, "Do you mean to tell me there were actually other pilots networked into our sim just now?"

"Yes," Major Patterson says quickly, almost casually, but Lee can hear the tension in the Major's voice—a mirror to Apollo's own concerns regarding the other pilots' abilities. "Stand by for temporary exclusive intercept protocol." His words advise them that the other pilots will soon be privy to their conversation.

"Are they blind?" Starbuck speaks of the unknown fighter jocks that targeted them both.

"Before you lock onto a contact, give the word 'domino,' and wait for the response 'chai' before going for the kill. Acknowledge," Patterson demands.

Kara keeps beating the dead horse, "How about we just look out the window?"

"Domino, chai, copy that," Lee cuts in, his tone a warning to Starbuck flying beside him.

Kara exhales heavily into the coms but heeds his caution. "Copy," she says, and immediately there's a loud but brief buzz of static.

"This is Green Meanie. Unknown viper pilots come back," a brisk alto sounds over the wire.

"Green Meanie this is Apollo. Starbuck's my wingman." Lee quickly checks his screens with the assumption that Dradis is functioning properly again. He now counts a full CAP in the sky with him and Starbuck, then he checks his own position. "We're just under a klick from Orion off the starboard bow, three degrees from her elliptical."

"Apollo, god of war, eh?" a cocky male voice challenges.

"Actually he's Apollo because he's poetry in motion," Starbuck's smartass smirk is practically visible over the radio.

"Guess he needs to be slick with the stick when he starts moving like a cylon," the nugget challenges.

"At least he knows to look out the canopy before firing at unknown targets, Junior," Starbuck huffs.

"Chuck it people, and focus here," Apollo demands their attention. "We had three bandits on Dradis before the cylons launched their scrambling weapon. I want everybody eyeballing the sky."

The woman who called herself Green Meanie bristles, "Can I ask your rank, sir?"

Lee exhales heavily, nearly rolls his eyes, "Not over a live channel, nugget."

That sweet, low chuckle he loves so much sounds over the open line. "Oh what I wouldn't _give_ to see that eye-roll!" Starbuck squeals a little too gleefully.

Lee opens his mouth to scold her and get her back on task, but he can't help chuckling right back, while a sudden warmth fills him at the way she catches him out. "The cylons, 'Buck?" he finally teases back. "Remember how we're looking for them?"

Her voice goes soft, "I remember everything." And there's so much in that final word, so many shared secrets.

"You better," he answers without thinking for it. He clears his throat, and suddenly his eyes are drawn to a quick silver flash just skimming the range of his canopy. "'Cause we've got bandits in the grass maybe 20 klicks away."

Immediately Kara's bird dives towards the bandits, and Lee automatically turns with her, protecting her six.

"Green Meanie, Junior, on me," he sounds to the two pilots who initiated contact. "Everybody else, eyes to the skies and keep it close to the Orion."

"Actually my callsign's GULP," Junior tries to correct him as they are flying towards the cylons.

"Wait—GULP, seriously?" Starbuck's voice is incredulous as the cylons get bigger in the window. "And you _claim_ that?"

"Starbuck," Lee tries to call back her focus.

"Hey, wait a second—" Junior starts but Kara cuts him off.

"Okay, you know what, nevermind because you're Junior for the next ten minutes. So button it!"

"Get your heads in the game, 'Jocks," Apollo warns. "We're going live here. Remember intercept protocol, and weapons free if you don't get proper response. Copy?"

"Copy," Starbuck comes back right away, along with Green Meanie and Junior and at least three other distinct voices that Apollo hasn't heard yet today.

"Domino," Starbuck declares over the live channel, just before even she could be said to be within reasonable range of the bandits. When there is no response, she guns it while Apollo keeps her wing.

"Meanie, Junior, you've got our six," he tells them, anticipating the light show Starbuck's going to create. Except…except it's taking too long to get to the bandits, and they're still not up on Dradis even though Apollo has all vipers, five raptors and the Orion clearly visible.

He bites his lip. "Break off," he commands but waits for Starbuck to comply before he follows his own order. "Break off," he says again, and this time Starbuck listens right away. She pulls downward and starboard—like they always do for increased visibility and by shared habit. Green Meanie and Junior follow soon after.

"Back to the ship," Apollo orders, fairly certain that Green Meanie and Junior are probably the most experienced nuggets the CAP has, and not liking at all that they've essentially just left the Orion undefended.

"Excuse me, sir," Green Meanie almost uses the designation as an expletive. "The cylons are within our range. If we don't get them they're going to go after the Orion."

"No," Apollo shakes his head even though they can't see, "They're luring us out, and they're going after the Orion right now."

"What?" Green Meanie's voice can get pretty high. "Are you joking? There's no way—"

"Starbuck?" Apollo interrupts her.

"I've got your six," Kara offers, and she's right with him when he increases the burn. Surprising, so is Junior, and even Green Meanie accelerates to keep up.

"Apollo to Orion. We have incoming. Repeat, we have incoming. Launch second wave alert fighters and form up the CAP."

"Apollo this is Orion. Say again?"

"Orion, we have inbound bandits coming up to ambush the Orion. Launch alert fighters immediately and form up the CAP."

"Negative, Apollo. We read nothing on Dradis. Do you have a visual confirmation?"

"Dradis is still malfunctioning, and no we do not have visual confirmation because by the time we see them they will have blasted somebody out of the sky. Now launch the alert fighters!" Apollo finishes addressing Major Patterson and turns his attention to the CAP:

"Okay, Patrol. New formation." Lee briefly checks his Dradis. "Those of you to the Port of Orion, on me. Starboard side forms up on Starbuck and the three vipers remaining come to my side. The extra raptor goes to Starbuck. Meanie on me. Ready? Break."

"Starbuck," he transfers to the channel they began on.

There's dead air for a second while he waits for her to see the light and transfer over to the private channel. "Yeah?"

"You've got Starboard and the sky, and watch our six. Orion comes first, just like the Bucket would, understood?"

"Yeah, I gotcha," she comes back, a little tense, "But there has to—" she sucks in a breath— "Damn it," she says, and he hears the private channel die. He switches back fast enough to hear her exclaim, "Bandits in the sky bearing 2-4-5. Coming in hot."

Apollo checks the sky, "Verified! Vipers form up with your wingman. Orion, where are those Alert Fighters?"

"Fighters are going into the tubes. Launch in 90 seconds."

"90 seconds from the tubes?" Apollo grimaces because Major Patterson obviously did not heed his warnings. "Okay people, give me some numbers! What do you see?" he addresses the other pilots.

"This is Fireball," a timid voice that must be an Academy student comes across the wire, and Lee wonders quickly how many more actual people are involved in this simulation. "I had three bandits on my Dradis just a minute ago, but they disappeared."

Lee shakes his head. "Negative, Fireball, do not, repeat _do not_ trust Dradis. Everybody eyeball it."

"I count twenty-one raiders coming from 2-4-5," Junior beats Starbuck to report.

"Confirmed," Starbuck offers.

"Looks like we've got another nineteen bandits coming from this direction, sir," the designation falls more easily from Green Meanie's lips this time. "Looks like…8-6-1," she continues before he can ask.

Starbuck's voice comes across the line like a breeze, "Ten seconds until weapons range, Apollo."

"Acknowledged. Good hunting," he comes back. He loses track of her after that because his own squadron approaches the cylons coming from the opposite direction, the now familiar, boxier shapes becoming more distinct as they come into view.

"Roll call," Lee demands of his squadron. Though there's really not quite enough time, he needs to know how many _people_ are in the air with him, how many machines.

"Green Meanie."

"Dexter."

"Fireball."

"Wizard"

"Drone."

They just finish offering their call signs when Lee opens the channel, "Domino," He declares, his viper zeroing in on one of the boxy ships. No response is given. "Weapons free! Weapons free!" Lee glances towards the nuggets and back to his prey. With a slight squeeze of his trigger, he blasts the closest two cylons out of the sky and grazes another. The five other vipers manage to take out two raiders between them. Immediately the cylon formation regroups. Lee recognizes the grouping immediately. He bites his lip. He's got five real pilots.

"Meanie take Dexter two klicks to port. Fireball and Wizard take it front and center. Drone you're on me. We're going to flank these toasters. I want the empty vipers on the second wave, and everybody remember we're strictly eyeballing it here."

"Copy that," Meanie's voice comes over the mic just as her bird sails leftward.

"Yes, sir," a clear tenor Lee hasn't heard before complies.

Lee looks out his canopy to spot the viper on his wing. "Drone?" he asks.

"Sir," that same clear tenor replies.

"Okay. We've got the easy part." _Unless they see this coming. _"I want you to take lead and go high and wide with your shots."

Drone acknowledges the order. "Copy that, sir." His voice is steady, but his flying gets a little loose with a subtle but definite nervousness. Apollo gives him a little more room to maneuver, and Drone lets loose with the artillery. Apollo dives low, shooting sporadically to keep the cylons in the target area.

"Meanie?" Apollo asks. "Are you ready for them?"

"I'm always ready," she comes back. Meanie's not the hotshot she thinks she is, but she's not a bad shot either. She takes out a raider and disables a second. "And that is how we do it boys and girls," she declares.

Her cockiness nearly makes Apollo smile, but he shakes his head instead, _Thank gods there aren't real cylons out here with these kids._

"Good work, Meanie," he offers, feeling that she needs the praise. "Let's bring it back in. Wizard, Fireball, check out that pair of raiders trying to steal past you. Take 'em out."

Fireball's startled voice speaks out, "Sir, I don't think I can—"

"Yeah you can," says Lee, as calm as the gentle rains across the thin Eastern Piconese Continent. "You can because you have to."

Lee hears his sharp intake of breath, but not another word of protest from Fireball. Apollo sighs back into his seat. The pace of the 'battle,' as it were, is almost leisurely. The cylons aren't attacking with any sort of organization. Rather, they're throwing teams or individual raiders toward Orion and, therefore, Lee's team by default. Even for a sim, this feels soulless…off…wrong. Apollo checks the skies around Orion again, his eyes briefly veering towards Starbuck's end of the fight.

"Apollo," she calls to him as if she feels him looking for her.

"Starbuck," he acknowledges her even as he notes with satisfaction that Wizard and Fireball took out their two assigned cylons.

She sighs. "They're biding their time. Both squadrons are coming at us from the bow. There has to be something else."

Lee nods and takes a piece of a second to check Dradis again—nothing. "I agree. I'm sending a scout. You do the same."

"Copy that."

"Meanie, check out our six and take it low," Apollo orders even as he hears Starbuck commanding Junior to fly high and aft. "Orion, do we have anything on the Dradis affecting weapon?"

Patterson clears his throat and takes an extra second to answer even though Apollo knows he knows the answer since he chose the sim. "Not as yet, Apollo."

"Copy," Apollo shifts his fingers on the stick as he gets the expected answer. "Okay kids, they want us to be distracted? We're going to be distracted." He clears his throat and shakes his head—hard—just once. And then he grins. "Dexter, I want you to attach yourself to one of the unmanned vipers," he looks at their formation, "let's say V-2, as if it were Meanie. It will approach the raiders in waves, retreating after firing a couple shots." Lee gives instructions to the empty ship confidently, knowing the voice recognition software will cause the bird to follow the commands to the letter if not the spirit of his directions. "Mimic it."

The swift motion of Dexter's viper is punctuated by her brisk, "Yes, sir."

"Wizard and Fireball," Apollo commands, "I want you to move into enemy airspace. Take potshots, stay alive, and keep your wingman. Don't worry about anything else," he directs, even as he's still thinking of how much Fireball needs that extended exposure to simulated fire. It'll make for a critical difference for Fireball when he's caught in cylon crossfire for real.

"Copy, sir," he hears the two young men in stereo.

"The rest of the empty vipers will stay on the periphery on the battlefield, stay in two by two group formation, and try not to get hit," Apollo orders. "Ready, guys? Break!"

Lee takes a second to watch the squadron follow his commands. "Okay, Drone," Lee addresses the last nugget, his temporary wingman, "that leaves you and me. We're going to charge the central battle grouping, bearing 6-2-7, make a skiff run, and lose each other. We're both going starboard but you take it up. I'm going to act like I can't find you. I'll let the raiders gather on my tail, and you're going to take them out after intercept protocol. Got it?"

The radio buzzes as if there's something Apollo should hear, but then there's not another second's hesitation before Drone's precise tones acknowledge the order. Apollo keeps an eye toward the rest of their group, listening to their intermittent chatter through the brief interruptions from Starbuck's squadron. Drone keeps Apollo's wing as they bully into the primary battle grouping. They knock off another three cylons, and all the while Drone maintains a significant distance from Apollo's bird, as if he's afraid some non-existent wind shear might suck his viper into Apollo's wing.

Apollo watches three of the remaining cylons in the grouping reform and turn back to make a run at him and Drone. It's the perfect opening.

"Here it is," he tells Drone.

"I know," and there's something so solemn and sad in those suddenly too softly spoken words.

Apollo bites his lip at the tone, but keeps his bird low and right, forcing himself to trust that Drone will have his back. Lee gathers several raiders on his tail, just barely managing to avoid the gunfire without losing the cylons completely. One of the cylons seems particularly adept at regaining his six after every single time he shakes it. Lee has to wonder if there's a real person in Cylon Station right now biting his lip while Lee just barely manages to escape him every time.

"Domino!" Lee hears the word and automatically dives his viper.

"Chai!" he responds, still pushing forward on the stick. The light show above him takes out the three cylons.

Apollo checks Dradis and then the corresponding birds in the sky. Everybody in his squad's still alive. He just manages to breathe a sigh of relief when Meanie and Junior report in.

"Sirs, we have a problem," Junior's low voice gets on the line first. "There's a huge cylon contingent coming up on Orion's six: Four wings with three squadrons each."

"Confirm that count," Meanie chimes in.

"Any base ships?" Kara asks.

"I—" Junior starts and then breaks off, confused. "Base ships, sir?"

Lee cringes. "She means Jump-Capable ships."

"Oh, yes, sir. There's one Jump Ship."

"Is it in the same quadrant as the raiders?" Starbuck pushes.

"Yes, sir," Meanie chimes in hurriedly.

Lee nearly smiles. "So you're thinking what I'm thinking," his words are for Kara only.

She hums on a laugh and the sound makes Lee's own lips tingle. "Maybe," she draws out the word, "Mr. In-The-Box."

"Maybe, eh? Let's find out for certain," he finishes addressing Kara. "Orion, do you copy?"

Patterson answers from the control room, "Go ahead Apollo."

"Junior reports four wings of cylon raiders and a Jump Ship on our six. I know Dradis is still down, but can we focus radiological sensors on the area?"

There's a different sort of pause—more surprised, less heavy-handed—before Patterson answers this time. "Affirmative Apollo. Results show," he hesitates as if he's really looking up data this time, "four nuclear weapons. Each nuclear weapon is approximately fifty kilometers from every other nuclear weapon."

"One in each wing," Starbuck surmises.

Apollo nods absently at first, as if she can see him. "Right," he clears his throat. "Orion can I get a vector on those nukes? And send the numbers to the raptor pilots, too,"

"Copy that," Patterson seems somewhat amused to get the order, making Lee remember belatedly that he's talking to a superior officer.

"Thank you, sir," he offers bare recompense, "Okay, so where are my raptor pilots?"

"I've got three of them over here," Starbuck's voice gets tight for half a second, and Lee realizes she's watching her squad combat the last of the cylons on her front just as he's watching his pilots take out the remaining raiders on his side.

"Well, that's what we have, then. My raptors are all ones and zeros over here."

"Could three explosions take out the forth nuke?" Starbuck's voice is unhurried and casual, and he knows she's feeling the same lack of urgency he is during this sim. Everything's just happening so slowly. It's hard to take it seriously in a way.

Apollo shrugs, "I give it fifty-fifty as long as we target the front and side squadrons."

"You really think the raiders are just going to fly right into an explosion," he can hear her mouth pull up on one side as she talks.

"It's only fifty klicks, and if we take an extra second with targeting we might be able to directly target and set off one of the nukes rather than just having the raptors' heavy artillery achieve secondary explosions. At the very least it'll blind the rear wing just like it'll blind the b—the Jump Ship."

"Leo, Sally, Backspin," Kara calls to her pilots as soon as the debate is over. "Got a mission best suited to bus drivers," she teases.

"Yes, sir," a trio of voices report back quite earnestly.

"You guys are going after the raider wings with the telemetry numbers you just got from Orion," Starbuck instructs. "Jump in, find the nukes if you can—don't use more than three seconds targeting though—release your artillery on the wing's six," the more likely to hit one of the nukes accidentally if nothing else, "and jump out."

She's met with silence at first. Then all three pilots and maybe an ECO or two talk at once:

"Sir, we'll never—"

"How are we supposed to—"

"The targeting computer isn't going to want—"

"The numbers aren't going to make up themselves, and even if—"

"Knock it off," Starbuck comes back low and strong. "You're embarrassing me in front of the CAG," she declares in a blatant lie. Only later will Lee realize she called him their CAG. "Now you know how to do this."

Again there's quiet, and then a smooth alto says, "We use the telemetry to jump below the wing. Our ECO targets the nuke if he can—"

"Or if _she_ can," another woman's voice interrupts, "by using the radiological alarm in place of Dradis. Then we fire our missiles and jump out…we jump out by…" she stalls, stymied.

"Reversing the same jump coordinates we just used a moment before," another, much more familiar ECO picks up the strand. "We'll have some drift, but as long as we stay within eight seconds between jumps, we only need fifteen kilometers to error-proof it. We've got it."

Lee can practically feel Starbuck's smile when she says, "Thank you, Helo. Leo, Rogue, also very nice," she adds. "Give yourselves space, and get your jump coordinates together. This battle's on your shoulders, raptors. You can do this."

"Starbuck," he calls to her on their private channel while the ECOs are still calculating.

"I'm here," she comes back after a second.

"I'm leaning towards Taigen III to take on the squadrons' remains." They won't need any contingency plan at all if the raptors can successfully target one of the nukes, but between the difficulty of the shot and the amount of time the raptors have for it, having a back-up plan is only prudent.

"Mmm," she weighs his idea, "I was thinking more like the Vitter Moons."

He exhales heavily. They'll need at least three raptor pilots to mimic the Fleet victory at the Vitter Moons. As much as she considers herself to be a pessimist, Kara has a terrible time considering the worst case scenario. Unlike Lee. He feels the smile creep to his lips. "Vitter Moons it is," he tells her and switches back to Red Protocol.

Helo comes back almost immediately, "Sirs, we've ready."

"On my mark," Kara says deliberately. "Ready, ready—break!"

It's a long seven seconds between the raptors' jump to the raider wings and the jump back. It takes another three seconds for the flash of light from the nuclear explosion to reach Orion—meaning at least one of the ECOs hit his target dead on.

"Whoo-hoo!" Starbuck hollers triumphantly.

"Alright!" Junior yells right behind her.

"Yeah, not bad for a bunch of bus drivers, is it, sirs?" Lee can hear Helo's grin through the wire, but his cockiness is certainly well-deserved, and Lee grins right back:

"Ha! Not bad, Helo. Not bad at all." It's impossible to tell which ECO guided his missile to the nuke's sweet spot until the replay hits the computer, but Lee would sure as hell put his money on Helo if he had anybody to bet against. "Very nice job raptors. Now we need to know what's left. Orion," Apollo goes back to addressing Major Patterson, "Do we have any data on whether the Jump Ship survived?"

Patterson comes back immediately, "No, Dradis is still down and radiological data would be useless."

"Sir," Starbuck says, voice even and sure, "I recommend you try taking several stills of the radiological data and comparing them to see if the ship is moving through it."

"Negative, Starbuck," the Major comes back somewhat exasperated, "the entire area is filled with radiological material. There is no way to differentiate what the nuclear material is covering, if anything."

"Actually," Lee tries really, really hard not to sound smug, "Starbuck's right." It had been another of Gaeta's ideas once upon a time. "The concentrations of radiological material will alter depending on what is moving through it. Every type of ship and natural body will leave its own signature."

"Well unless you have a computer program meant to identify the data," Patterson comes back in clipped tones, and abruptly Lee realizes his mistake in confronting him over an open channel, "I suggest you eyeball it."

"Yes, sir," Kara responds before Lee can get himself into further trouble. "I can't take you anywhere," she addresses Lee, low and bold even in Patterson's hearing. "Leo, Backspin, go behind and above the last known coordinates for the Jump Ship. Be ready to jump back out right away. Vipers, what kind of numbers are we looking at for the remaining raiders up here?"

"Almost gone, sir," Junior pipes up eagerly. "Only two left in this quadrant."

"There's only one—" Drone stops and clears his throat, "scratch that. No more left on this side."

"Leo, Backspin," Lee takes their names from Kara's lips, "tell me some good news."

"Jump Ship's wasted, CAG," a female pilot responds, Lee's new designation slipping cleanly through the mic. "Looks like a couple of raiders survived the initial blast intact, but they're either losing fluid or air of some kind. No visible threats."

"Thanks, Leo," Kara says so Lee doesn't have to admit he doesn't know her name. "Bring it back in."

"Good work, people," Apollo tells them, pride unexpectedly fizzing throughout his body at the small accomplishments these kids carried over today. "Okay, let's clean it up and go home. Orion, looks like you can cancel the second wave alert fighters. We're coming in."

When Lee asks for roll call as they take turns landing on Orion, there's not a single voice missing.


	8. Part 8

With special thanks to my betas Thrace_Adama, Uberscribbler, circe383, and most especially Taragel who had my back on both chapters.

* * *

**Chapter 18 Blood in the Water **

"Chai? Seriously?" Kara laughs when she reaches Lee, her hair free and her helmet already stowed beside the sim.

Lee shakes his head, sweat swinging from his close-cropped hair with even that slightest movement. "Battlestar communication standards are different in the field, I suppose." His lips quirk as he fights to hold back his grin.

The nuggets emerge more slowly from their cockpits, less accustomed to the ritual motions than Kara and Lee are.

A woman with curly brown hair looks around from the top of her viper. Her eyes quickly focus on Lee and Kara. She scurries off the ladder. She's not in the sim closest to them, but she's got the most hustle and reaches them first. "Sirs," she says, her smooth alto almost meekly reverent. "That was incredible!"

Another nugget shakes his head as he trots up just behind the woman. "I've never been in an exercise like that before!" he declares, eyes wide. "How did you know how to—"

"Using the radiological alarm to track the cylons!" a third nugget interrupts as she pounces on Kara and Lee's position.

"And having the raptors directly reverse their trajectories!" another chimes in.

"—absolute best teaching exercise I've ever been in." The comments continue and start to overlap each other.

"Green Meanie, sirs." The curly topped nugget raises her hand in salute. "It's a pleasure to meet you both."

Kara lets Lee return the salute, ready to move to the control room to catch their scores.

"GULP here, sirs." A tall, dark-eyed nugget with a rough jaw lifts his hand to his forehead as well. "But I'll answer to Junior, of course," he finishes deferentially, lashes brushing his cheeks, and Kara realizes Junior's asking her to gift him with his new callsign.

"Of course," Kara murmurs and lifts her brows—she just met the kid. She sneaks a glance over to Lee, whose own eyebrows are reaching toward his hairline.

Six more uniformed men and women—the raptor pilots and ECOs—scurry from the designated raptor area of Viper Sim B to join the circle surrounding Kara and Lee.

"Lieutenant Mikala." The first man introduces himself and Kara immediately identifies him as the only male raptor pilot from the flight.

"Sally, right?" She smiles. She liked the way he handled himself. He had a good feel for diving runs.

"Yes, sir," Sally puffs out proudly. "Thank you for giving us the opportunity to prove ourselves sir. Surveillance tasks and raptor pilots usually go hand in hand. It was terrific being able to really get in the fight for once."

And it was true: raptor pilots were generally kept on the second line in battle so the presumably superior pilots—the viper jocks—could catch the heat and the glory both.

"Good job, sir," a familiar voice finally trips into Kara's hearing.

"Helo!" Kara calls even as she turns to greet him.

"Pretty slick flying for a viper jock." He teases her in a way few people ever dare.

She smirks. "Not bad for a backseat bus driver, either."

Lee surreptitiously taps her shoulder, and she notices the nuggets closing in on them a little farther, mouths opening as the questions start up again. Kara nods and jerks her head toward SimCon. She, Lee and Karl walk three to the aisle while the nuggets simply part to make room for them. She steals a glance to Lee, only to see his ears practically glowing with his embarrassment at the nuggets' effusive commentary.

They make their way across the room, and more and more nuggets start calling Lee 'CAG' as they get closer to their destination. It would almost be flattering except for how embarrassing it is. They have no idea what it's like to place their lives in their CAG's hands, no idea of life on a war-torn battlestar. They're like kids playing house instead of trained fighter pilots.

Once they step inside SimCon, the nuggets' chatter in the main viper sim seems almost quiet by comparison. Patterson seems to have employed what looks to be almost twice as many programmers as the sim had original participants, and every programmer is now reviewing the data of his or her charge.

A look to Patterson himself finds the Major engaged in a quiet but animated argument with a young Colonel—only about Patterson's age. The Colonel's dressed in casual greys, just like any Academy teacher. Despite the argument, the man's stance is relaxed, and his nondescript brown hair and brown eyes aren't particularly noteworthy, yet there's something about him that gives Kara gooseflesh the closer she gets to him.

She steps closer, still watching while the Colonel stands over Patterson's shoulder and the Major enters what looks like his passcode into the primary sim computer—the one only instructors of a certain seniority are permitted to use. He selects some data she can't make out for what has to be either erasure or transfer or both. Then the Colonel holds out his hand, and Patterson reluctantly hands him a datacard he ejects from the computer. The two men share one last long and lingering glance, and Kara wonders how well they know each other. Patterson definitely looks sorry that they do.

The Colonel turns just as Kara approaches the center console, and she catches a glimpse of his eyes dead on, and for a second it's like looking at another survivor: There's something in his eyes that's so broken, he almost looks as though he could have come through the end of the worlds with Kara and Lee. His is just a battle-hardened stare like any other, but it seems out of place in this perfect world.

Quickly, Kara looks to Lee, only to see his eyes are stuck on the Colonel, lips pursed and brow furrowed in concentration. _At least it isn't just me_, she thinks, but the thought is anything but calming.

Then, as if time just starts spinning again, the sim scores slowly appear on the billboards above the center console. Scores that run higher than the pilot's average sim scores are posted in green, lower than the average scores are in yellow, and scores within twenty points of average are posted in white. The screen boasts green from left to right with a few scores listed in white interspersed—no yellow mars the pattern at all. Kara smiles to see the marked improvement. All the Raptor Pilots went up at least one level on the ROYGBIV scale—Backspin improved a full color from Mid-Orange on her last runs to Mid-Yellow this exercise. Helo scored Low Green. Junior and Meanie and a kid named 'Drone' from Lee's team got Mid-Greens. The rest of their team scored between Mid-Yellow and Low Green.

All of their teams' scores appear within a couple minutes of their entrance to SimCon—every score except for Kara's and Lee's. The delay causes the nuggets around them to get a bit more rowdy, wondering aloud where their lead pilots' scores could be. Unconsciously, Kara starts rubbing her thumbs together in an old comforting gesture, trying to feel for a ring that she'll never have now. As a pilot instructor, Kara knows the only reason their scores would be delayed for so long is if a party or parties outside the sim were observing and weighing in.

Kara had only seen it happen once before with a veteran pilot who'd returned to the Academy for testing on a special assignment. She'd only been permitted to observe in SimCon because of her instructor status. She'd itched so badly to fly with the pilot, whose callsign was, inexplicably, Rusty, but he was gone by morning. She'd later heard a rumor that he'd been recruited for the blackbagger squadron. She hadn't believed it at the time, figuring the elite spy unit to be too elusive to have touched on her dradis¸ but now she wonders if it's possible.

The logical part of her brain says she and Lee couldn't have possibly garnered attention from the famed blackbagger squad yet—if ever. It was the one contingency in Lee's plan to stop the forthcoming war that Kara had never really believed feasible. Even if they are somehow able to stop the end of the worlds, the idea that they'd be recognized by the Upper Tier or tapped by the blackbaggers seems impossible. And yet…it's the only thought running through her head between the outside interference with their sim scores and the Colonel arguing with Patterson.

While she's still mulling it over, Lee slides his fingers against Kara's, and she looks up to see him studying the billboards with anxiety. "I may have miscalculated," his words are brisk, his tone sharp. "Gods, I don't have _anything_ set up yet." Before she can think of what he means, a whooping holler starts the crowd off again, and Kara looks up to see her and Lee's scores have appeared—All Mid-Indigo for them both on the shared session, with an additional Upper Indigo for them to share as instructors in the exercise.

Kara swallows hard looking at the score. No one can receive an instructor's score unless they've already achieved instructor status—Kara won't get hers until the end of the term and Lee never technically got his, though he was forced to become an instructor just like all veteran pilots after the end of the worlds. She's not sure what it means that she's been given this status without anything to show toward it, but she's certain the reasoning can't mean anything good.

Kara glances toward Lee, but his eyes are deadlocked with Patterson's. Her gaze travels between the two men, watching when Patterson looks away first.

"We should go," Lee finally says to both Kara and Helo.

"Lee," she yanks on his hand, needing his eyes on hers.

"I screwed up, Kara," he shakes his head. "What are they doing looking at our scores? They weren't supposed to see us yet."

"Maybe they haven't, really." Her brow wrinkles, and she feels it like any lie between her eyes, "Maybe it won't matter."

He nearly smiles, then kisses the wrinkle on her forehead, and she closes her eyes. "We can't take the chance. We have to assume we're running out of time. What do we tell Helo?" he whispers for her ears only, tilting his head to gesture to the other man.

She nods, glad Lee's deferring to her about whether or not to bring Helo into the fold. "There's an intramural pyramid game tonight. We should all go. It'll give us time to talk."

"You sure about this?" he asks, his eyes already trusting her answer.

"I'm sure," she states unequivocally. Helo may not know her yet, but Kara knows him. They'll have Karl's benefit of the doubt when they tell him their story, and more importantly, his silence either way.

B

S

G

Lee's waiting for the barista to pour a cup of their strongest brew at the student union coffee shop when he gets the call. He quickly checks his watch, but it's only just after two and Kara's got classes until four. He nearly flips his phone open, puzzled, when he remembers he can check the caller ID first—it's a number with a Headquarters prefix. Lee sighs. There's only one person it can be.

"Hello?" he answers.

"Lee Adama," the husky alto he knows so well berates him, "What the hell is going on?"

"Colonel Jacobs, sir," he cringes and walks away from the counter sans coffee. "I didn't expect to hear from you until next week. I'm no papers until then," he can't help but add.

"As well I should know, right?" she shoots back, thick with sarcasm. "Lee this isn't a joke." Her tone gets serious. "Something's going on over here."

"What do you mean?" He cups the phone a little more closely to his ear.

"People are asking questions about you. People way above my clearance."

He bites his lip. "What sorts of questions?"

She sighs. "They want to know anything and everything about you down to the type of aftershave you use."

"You're kidding!" he huffs.

"I wish I were. Lee," she says, and he can hear her shift in her seat, "who is Lieutenant Kara Thrace?"

He stills where he stands. "How do you know that name?"

"How do you think? They were asking about her, too. They wanted to know how you knew her." When Lee stays silent, Reaper goes on to ask, "So who is she Lee?"

"Lieutenant Thrace is in her last semester at the Academy. She's going to start teaching there as an instructor next term." He gives her the bare basics.

"An instructor at the Academy. Twenty miles away from Headquarters where you're about to be stationed," she states. "And who is she to you, Lee?"

"Kara is—" How best to explain it? "Kara's my wingman," he says, then winces at the inadequacy of the term.

"Your wingman, really?" And Lee can feel her ire go up. "That's interesting considering you'd never flown with her in so much as a sim before yesterday. Not that I can access the sim records themselves. Everything but your scores are missing from the file, and even that doesn't give me any numbers—only the final rating. Congratulations on the All-Indigo by the way."

"What do you mean missing? How could they be missing? We just had an exercise this morning."

"You tell me, _Apollo_." She emphasizes the handle and Lee cringes, knowing what's coming next. "Speaking of your callsign, Apollo," she draws out the name. "Where'd you get it? Because I can't find anyone who gifted you. And I _know_ you'd never give yourself such a name—Son of Zeus and all that."

"I—" He thinks fast. "Kara. Lieutenant Thrace." He corrects himself. "She was the first one to call me Apollo. She said I was poetry in motion." And she had said so, just this morning.

"You let a junior officer gift you? Hmm…I don't believe you. You're not one to buck tradition like that. Besides, that's not what you told Zak."

His voice goes harder. "Why are you talking to Zak about me?"

"I have every right to be concerned about you." She responds in kind. "I said nothing about War College, but he was worried about you anyway. That's when he told me you'd been gifted. I wondered why you hadn't said anything to me when you were here, but when he gave the circumstances of how you'd been gifted, I knew why you'd kept your mouth shut. I know how you hate to be in your father's shadow, but that's not what happened at all, is it?"

He shakes his head. "Reaper—"

"Who is Lieutenant Thrace really," she interrupts, "and why are you so secretive about her? What are you into, Lee?"

Suddenly, Lee can understand her concerns. "It's not like that." He tries to explain. "Kara really is who she seems to be—a pilot and an instructor and a good friend." He adds, "We're going to the pyramid game tonight at Morris Field as a matter of fact."

"A soon-to-be instructor, you mean." Of course Reaper latches onto the only inconsistency in his speech.

"I—yeah, right. Soon-to-be." And he nearly hits himself for that slip. He sighs. "Look, you know what it's like when you finally meet your wingman, how everything falls into place while you're in the air, how it all works out." He waits until Reaper gives a hum of acquiescence. "That's what it's like between me and Kara, but it's not just in the air. It's everything and everywhere from here to beyond the Red Line."

Jacobs clears her throat. "Wow. Lee. I didn't expect to hear that from you today."

"Yeah, well," he blinks and calmly walks back to his cup of coffee, now waiting for him at the counter. "I don't think I did either."

The silence between them stretches, and Lee's starting to feel its discomfort when Jacobs says, "So she's why you left War College behind, is she?"

He's speechless for a moment until he can only say, "Yes." Because it is true, even if it isn't.

"Well congratulations, Lee. That's something your father never would have done."

Lee smiles at the slight jibe, his eyes finally drifting upward to look about the concourse area. His smile fades as he just catches sight of the Colonel from the sim this morning. The other man's got his hand to his ear as if he's listening to music, but he seems to be concentrating too intently to be doing that.

The Colonel looks right up at Lee a few seconds after he goes silent, and Lee's heart nearly stops.

"I have to go," he tells Reaper, then hangs up without further explanation. He tosses the coffee into the nearest trash receptacle and races across the room to try to reach the mysterious Colonel. Through the crowd, Lee watches him stand up and move toward the exit. Lee heads in the same direction, trying to cut him off. He loses sight of the man near the primary exit back to campus. He's only about four seconds behind him and starts to make for the front door when he sees the stairwell. He looks between the two doors for half a second before making his way towards the stairs. He goes up, taking the steps two and three at a time, bypassing a couple of cadets who try to salute him as he runs by. He pauses to check each level as he passes them. He makes it to the final floor, watches the door close just out of reach, but he doesn't have access to get in.

"Damn it!" He breathes the phrase as one word. He considers staking out the door, but there are at least four other exits to this floor. He's lost him—that is if the Colonel even came this way to begin with.

He sits down hard on the last step, wishing for his coffee and counting down the minutes until he can tell Kara.

B

S

G

"So do you believe me?" Kara asks as the late afternoon sun beams down onto Morris Field where they sit cross-legged along the grassy sidelines. She watches the play of sunlight across Karl's bare shoulders as they wait for the game to start and Lee to arrive.

"You've gotta be frakkin' insane," Karl answers. "There's no way the C-Bucks will take the Tournament this year."

"I'm telling you, they've got a great line-up. The new guy, Anders, is going to kick some ass."

"Anders?" Lee questions as he walks up from Kara's blind spot.

Karl shakes his head. "Some new guy on C-Bucks. Kara thinks he's hot shit."

Kara watches while Lee bites his lips. And swallows. "Hot enough to put some action on him?" he asks.

And Karl says 'yes' just as Kara says 'no.'

"But you just said to put down a hundred cred—"

She punches him in the arm. "Shut up, Karl."

"Ow! Frak, Kara!" he hollers and rubs at his arm so he won't get a charlie horse.

"I'd trust Kara on that one," Lee says, sitting on the ground between them. "She's got a good eye for pyramid players. Still," he ducks his head slightly but still meets her gaze, "she's got a better eye for pilots."

She grins. "I do," she crinkles her nose and confesses like it's a big secret. "I really, _really,_ do."

And Lee grins back with his whole face while Karl rolls his eyes but still smiles beside them.

"So who's going to win tonight, Kara?" Karl finally interrupts the silence after several long moments. "Will it be the Jumpers or Mod's old team?"

"The Jumpers," Kara offers decisively. "With Mod graduating last term, these guys are going to be all over the place." She shakes her head. "No discipline at all."

Helo nods and smiles like he had the same thought. "Yoder's a great second-liner though."

"Pshh! Without a first-liner to send him the passes, a good second-liner is about as useful as a team captain with a bum leg."

"And you'd know." Lee teases at the old hurt, but it doesn't sting anymore.

She swats at his head anyway. "Shut up, Lee." She grins at him.

Helo lifts his chin toward her. "So that's what happened to the pyramid scholarship?"

Kara squints at him, wondering how he'd known about that.

Helo shrugs and smiles. "I asked around."

"Yeah," Kara confirms. "Last month of sophomore year I tore a few tendons. Scholarship was nice while it lasted, but I just partied with the money I saved on books and rent anyway."

"So pyramid star to star pilot." He squinches his eyes just a little like her next answer is as worthy either way. "That the whole story of Kara Thrace?"

She laughs and starts to nod her head when Lee says simply, "Not even close."

Kara lifts her brows and feels her face go soft at his answer. She feels a grin spread across her mouth and bites her lower lip. Then she punches the arm holding Lee's weight.

"Frak it, Starbuck!" he hollers and punches her back.

A full-bodied laugh escapes her, bubbling up along with the pain just above her elbow. She tackles Lee, and they struggle for top position. She hears Helo laughing and sees him jump up to get out of the way.

They're breathing hard when Kara finally ends up on Lee's lap, legs around his waist, her hands just barely keeping her grip on his.

"Give up?" she whispers, centimeters from his mouth.

He shakes his head. "Uh-uh."

"You sure?" She breathes the words.

"Never." He smiles.

"Much as I love to be a third wheel, you guys gonna tell me why you brought me here anytime soon?" Karl sits back down and smiles, but his head tilts and his eyes narrow a little.

"Yeah, we'll tell you," Lee says and peeks at Kara for confirmation that she still wants to do this.

She nods and slides off Lee's lap, the motion letting her see just behind Helo to the stands filling with fans. Her sights fall to the Colonel from this morning like a compass to magnetic north. He has a seat in the bleachers three rows back from the Jumper sideline. He's out of uniform but his stance holds the same. She quickly looks away.

"Lee," she says and waits for his eyes to meet hers. "Keep looking at me. That Colonel from this morning's exercise is here."

His jaw hardens. "He was at the Student Union earlier, too."

"What? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm telling you now."

"Hey." Helo leans into the conversation. "What's going on?"

They both look to Helo as one, then at each other. Kara glances back at Helo first.

"Do you remember seeing a Colonel arguing with Patterson at the sim today?"

Karl shakes his head. "I—" He squints. "Maybe."

"This is the third time we've seen him today," Kara confides.

"So?" Helo shakes his head again. "It's a big campus, but it's not that big."

Surreptitiously, Kara peeks beyond Helo's shoulder again. Her brows raise. "He's gone."

"What?" Lee whips his head around to see, but the Colonel isn't there to be found.

Both Kara and Lee get to their feet and scan the ground on the Jumper's side of the playing field.

"Was he listening to us?" Kara wonders aloud. "I didn't see any equipment, but I only caught a glance of him."

"How else could he have known we'd spotted him?" Lee shakes his head. "He had to have been. I think he was listening to my conversation with Reaper earlier, too."

"Whoa, whoa." Karl stands between them, arms up. "Are you guys listening to yourselves? If the brass hears you talking crazy like that, you'll lose your wings."

"Come on. We can still catch him." Kara grabs for Lee's wrist to pull him with her, but he yanks her back.

Lee shakes his head. "He's gone."

"We don't know that."

"And what are you going to say to him if you catch him anyway? I chased him this afternoon, and I still don't know what I'd ask. Even if he's really watching us, he's still a frakkin' Colonel for gods' sake!"

Kara deflates a little at the obvious problem of rank. "We have to know whether he's really following us and why."

"And we will," he says. "Don't worry. If he _is_ tailing us," Lee tilts his head. "Then we'll see him again."

**Chapter 19 Stronger for the Break**

They drink in silence. Dionysus is still fairly deserted at this early hour, and there's no competition for their stools at the bar. The same pretty bartender Helo was hitting on with such success the day before is on shift again. She offers her smiles freely, like she had a really good night the night before.

There's a small but growing collection of shot glasses sitting on the wooden plank between him and Starbuck. A lonely tint of green skims the belly of each one.

From the corner of his eye, Lee spies Kara checking him every few minutes, her lips pursed every time, but the only words she's spoken have been to Helo's barmaid, asking for more ambrosia. Kara lifts two fingers again, and the girl comes right over.

"Beer this time." Kara licks the last of the sweet ambrosia from her lips as Lee watches. "The microbrew," she orders Dionysus' specialty.

The silence continues between them while the bartender pours a couple drafts. Lee watches while she dumps the foam twice and fills each brew to the brim.

"Thanks," Kara speaks for both of them.

Lee cups the sticky glass as soon as it's laid out in front of him. He rubs the rim with his thumb, its tip just grazing the layer of foam at the top of his mug. The froth collapses into nothing the moment it meets his skin.

"It doesn't have to be a bad thing if we're on their Dradis already," Kara points out before either one of them sips the brew.

Lee squints, shakes his head, and then the words just come pouring out. "Gods, Kara, we're not just on their Dradis, they're _watching_ us," he stresses the term. His lids pinch shut as he tries to get the vitriol out of his tone, knowing she doesn't deserve his frustration. He opens his eyes back up to her. "Even if seeing the Colonel so many times today was some completely unrelated fluke, someone with rank is watching our sim scores. They're asking questions about us. They don't do that without reason." He grazes his teeth over his bottom lip. "They're either going to dismiss us outright, or they're going to pull us soon for one project or another. That's just the way this works." He sips the beer, letting the bitter flavor fill his mouth. "Gods know we probably shouldn't even be talking about the situation now." He shifts his gaze around the bar, but just like every other time he's looked, there's not a single soul out of place and no eyes on them at all save the pretty bartender's glance every now and again. He sighs and looks back to Kara.

She lifts her glass to her lips and pointedly doesn't look at him. "So why _are_ we talking about it?" She gulps down three mouthfuls in seconds.

He angles his chin, raises then furrows his brow. "We need to have a plan."

Her mug hits the bar with a jolt, and she raises an irritated eyebrow. "_You_ need to have a plan, Lee."

His head jerks towards her. His body tenses as he leans into her space. "We've only got one shot at this, Kara, one chance to get it right and stop it all from happening." He lifts his hand, full-fingered, and huffs. He feels his mouth pinch, his eyes narrow. He breathes out slowly, shuts his eyes and looks away, but he can't keep her from his sights for long.

"I hadn't even had time to _form_ most of the contingency plans I wanted to carry out. We've got no extra IDs," he counts the unrealized initiatives on his fingers, "no caches of supplies of any kind, no link to any underground anti-Cylon groups, no FTL ships." He shakes his head and just winces at the thought of it all. "We've got nothing but our commissions if they're already looking towards us. We can't pass on this opportunity if it's being handed to us, but if we take it, it's going to close all other avenues of defense."

He watches her bite her lower lip, first one side then the other as he waits for her words, needing her opinion to counter his. Then she lifts her beer and sips with sudden and aching slowness as she seems to consider what he's said. She sets her mug back down by centimeters. "I don't think I know how to be a civilian anymore." Her gaze flickers towards Lee but doesn't quite reach him. "I sure as hell wasn't one when we were planetside on New Caprica. Civilians sit and wait, and I'm tired of sitting and waiting." Her eyes, wide but pinched around the edges, find his. His gaze travels down to her pursed lips, the determined set of her chin, and somehow the look on her face is a shot in the arm to him—energizing and irritating him all at once.

He feels his brow crinkle and his eyes squint. "So what are you proposing we do?" he asks, his hand stretching on the bar somewhere nearer to her, reaching for her.

"We need to go after this," she tells him, gaze leveled and steady on him. "If they're really trying to recruit us for the blackbaggers or some other Fleet initiative, we need to let ourselves be their tools. We need to get in, and we need to become eyes and ears for the Fleet by whatever means necessary."

His face pinches, and his stomach bottoms out because she's just reiterating the lack of choice. "Kara, it's bad enough now, but if we actively try to get their attention, we'll have eyes on us 24/7. It'd take years to build up what we need outside the Fleet, and there's no possible way we could build up what we might need under any sort of scrutiny at all."

"You worry about making all those plans," she huffs, shaking her head, "But you'll never need them, Lee. We only ever needed one thing to make this work. We need the Fleet. I know why you want to be a blackbagger, and, yeah the information they have access to would be the perfect screen for us to report what we know back to the Fleet. I get that." She turns to him, eyes hard and giving him the full force of her glare. "But this has always been all or nothing, Lee. There are no contingency plans for the end of the world."

He gets to his feet and shrugs. "So we're not even going to _bother_ trying to come up with a failsafe in the very likely event that we end up not doing a damn bit of good for the Colonies?" He nods, gives her his worst smirk. "Great. That's great."

He bends his head and lifts his drink in one hand while the other reaches for his jacket. His fingers almost grab it when she stands and smacks his shoulder. "Hello, wake up!" she yells. "We know the day. We have an idea of how. We even know who, and you're going to stand there and sulk because you can only screw them over in one way instead of the ten different ways you want to do it? Seriously?" her arm shoots out again, catching his elbow this time, spilling his brew down his front.

"Damn it!" he cusses as he looks down at the mess she's made.

Across from him, she coughs out a laugh. "Drinking problem, Apollo?" The smirk on Kara's face is what knocks him back into himself, even above the cold and sticky material matted to his chest. "I could help you with that," she bites her lips, but her smile's already too broad for her to stall it. "Need a straw over here." She signals the barmaid, who smiles and rolls her eyes at them both, seemingly unconcerned by their argument.

Lee shakes his head, wanting to be angry, wanting at least to be irritated, but watching the corners of Kara's mouth rise farther up until she sports an out and out grin, he can't help but to chuckle with her. Their shared laughter only lasts a moment though, and Lee's smile falters almost as soon as it settles.

"It'll be easier this way," she declares suddenly, starkly. "If your plan had worked out, you'd try to do a thousand things at once and never be able to finish any of them. We can work from the inside better, anyway. It's what we know."

"If we do it this way—" he breaks off, breathes deeply through his nose. "We'll only have one shot. There'll be no second chances. I don't want to go back to where we were, Kara," he begs, eyes holding hers, head and hands shaking. "You," he breathes deeply and lifts his fingers to her cheek. "I don't ever want to go back to where we were before," his voice wavers, and he feels like he should qualify the statement with what the whole of the Colonies lost on the Day the Worlds Ended, but the truth is, coming back in time together like they did, Lee's gained so much more than the Worlds back.

"I know," Kara finally nods, and lays her fingers over his where they rest against her face. "I swear by all the gods we will always have this," she whispers the words, but her soft tone can't detract from the sheer strength of her vow, and it makes Lee catch his breath with its quiet ferocity because Kara _believes_ in the gods. She wouldn't swear by any of them unless she meant it.

And all of a sudden, the world snaps into place around Lee, like he was always supposed to come here to this moment and this realization, "We're going to make it work," he promises back, and he says 'it', but he means _everything_—this vague plan they have of getting in with Fleet Intelligence and exposing the Cylons' plot, stopping the End of the Worlds and the deaths of everyone they know and love, and most importantly to Lee, they're going to keep this thing between the two of them alive and well through it all.

She squeezes his fingers as they stroke her face. "Yeah, we are."

B

S

G

Kara drives them home. The soft weight of Lee's hand on her shoulder keeps her centered and focused as she navigates the city streets she's slowly relearning to depend on.

"You know we can't bring Helo in on this now," Lee says in the quiet between them.

Kara nods, but still bites her lips at the thought. "I know we can't." They can't take the chance of being overheard while they tell him or of whispers Helo might make in his incredulity—it's not like he knows her well enough now to place any value to her words. She knows that, really. She just didn't want to think of it before.

"I know he wouldn't have believed us at first anyway," she shrugs through the acknowledgement, "but I like to think we could have convinced him over time," she adds softly as a stoplight in the distance flashes to yellow. She eases back on the gas. "It would've been easier if we could have told him. If we could've had someone else…" she exhales heavily and slowly depresses the brake. The deliberate motions aren't enough to distract her from the fact that they really are in this alone—much more so than she'd thought they'd be.

"I know." His thumb just brushes against her collarbone. "I'd hoped the same thing about my father," he confides. "I still can't even get ahold of him."

She looks away and just catches the signal change from red to green. She gases through the intersection, sniffs and clears her throat for no real reason. "I'm sorry," she speaks to both of them.

She watches him shrug from the corner of her eye. "A part of me thought he could fix this somehow, have it make more sense at least."

"Me, too," she confesses, eyes on the young trees lining the boulevard, heart still hoping for that kind of surety. They may have vowed to save the worlds, but that doesn't mean they know how they're going to do it after all.

"Thinking about it now though, how could we have possibly convinced him of what we know? I mean Dad hates the Cylons, and he'd do anything in his power to protect the Colonies from them, but what could we have said that could have convinced him of where we came from?" She hears him sigh, and steers through the last few turns before her apartment.

"You're right," she offers an answering exhalation, weight of the world that might come resting heavily on her mind. "He never would have believed us, either," her voice isn't quite a whisper.

"Even if we told him about things in his own past," Lee continues, "he'd think we'd gotten the information through alternate means." She glances over just as he shakes his head. "No, it's probably for the best that we couldn't reach him. Although," he shrugs while Kara pulls into her parking spot. "We could give him some hints for later: clues on Cylon behavior or what he'd need on Galactica if it came to that again."

She chuffs, but not without humor. "I think Commander Adama is one of the few people in the Twelve Colonies that doesn't need guidance on how he should approach the Cylons." Kara shuts off the truck and turns to smile at him at the thought.

Lee returns the grin. "Yeah, he does have a flair for dealing with them, doesn't he?"

"Yeah." Kara lifts her brows in emphasis of the word. "Come on," she smacks him lightly. "Let's get inside."

He opens the door and steps out. She jogs around the front of the truck, and they walk into the building together. "Think we're going to get another early morning call with a sim opening?" he asks.

"Between third and fourth year nuggets and priority flight reservations, it'd be the only way we'd get into viper sims before noon," she sighs. "But," she feels one side of her mouth upturn. "With the way Patterson was riding us…well, I wouldn't put money against it, that's for sure."

"I wonder if they'll watch us again," he lowers his voice. "I wonder if they're watching now." He squirrels an arm around her waist and pulls her to him. "We could give them a show if they are," he teases, but she can tell his heart isn't in it.

Still she plays, "I'm game," she tells him, running her hand up his neck into his hair. He follows the slight pressure of her digits to rest his head on her shoulder. His mouth stays just barely open against her neck, and her fingers tighten in his hair automatically. He kisses her there, once, almost chastely, then drops his hand to their sides to grab hers. He brings her hand to his lips and barely grazes her knuckles against his mouth. The action's so unintentionally sweet, it takes her breath away.

"Let's go home," he says, words moving hotly across her neck.

They climb the remaining set of stairs in silence, their echoing footsteps the only sound. They make their way to their front door, Kara's keys in her hand, when a voice calls out behind them.

"I realize you're no papers until next week, but just because a man doesn't have an assignment, doesn't mean he shouldn't keep reasonable hours," the booming tones declare.

They turn as one to look at the figure just standing up from his seat on the stairs going to the next floor.

Lee squints and takes a step forward, "Dad?" he questions, tone high and mouth open, and seeing Bill Adama, all decked out in his regal greys on their doorstep, as if Lee and Kara's conversation of him had conjured his presence, seems about as unbelievable as anything else that's happened to them so far. "I thought you were in the clusterfrak?" Lee finally spits out.

"The Taequht-Nadone Nebula," the elder Adama corrects automatically, and Kara has to bite her lip to keep from smiling at the familiar interaction between the Adama men. "And I was until last week when my ship came into Picon for the exit interview."

"So you've been on this planet longer than I have," Lee shakes his head. "I must have sent you a dozen messages. You had to have gotten every one of them." His brow wrinkles to somewhere between confused and hurt.

"There was a problem with the Games," the elder Adama explains. "I was under orders not to contact anyone outside the exercise until I could debrief," his voice sounds harder, more detached than Kara's used to, and when she looks up at him, the Old Man's face is set in a rigid mask she's only ever seen during interrogations and discipline hearings—though never her own. She glances back to Lee to get his take on it.

She watches Lee nod his understanding to the Old Man, but Kara can see the struggle on his face to accept his father's answer. And then Lee stiffens up beside her, and she follows his eyes to look at the Commander. The Old Man's glaring right at her. Automatically, she stands to attention and salutes.

"Lieutenant Kara Thrace, sir," she declares herself even though she's not in uniform, has nothing to indicate she's a member of the Colonial Fleet except the tags hidden beneath her shirt. She holds her stance under the Old Man's scrutiny while he steps forward and walks from one side of her to the other, unabashedly sizing her up. Finally, he returns the salute, allowing her to stand at parade rest.

"Lieutenant," he keeps eyeing her carefully, as if she's dangerous. "Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, sir." She keeps her gaze just past his ear, her heart beating faster at his very presence even as she works to pretend a detachment she could never feel. "Commander Adama of the Battlestar Galactica. Lee's father, sir," she clarifies her understanding.

"So you could probably comprehend how upset I was to learn that my son gave up his spot at War College," he emphasizes with a look over to Lee, "In order to accept a position at Headquarters." Adama squints and sets his sights directly on his son. "_Headquarters_, Lee."

"Is there a question in there, sir?" Lee asks in bored tones, just as insubordinate as he always used to be when it came to his father.

Kara grimaces at where this is going, "Sir, if I could offer my living room as a better venue for this discussion." Kara tries to offset the argument. The role of peacemaker is usually foreign to her, but it's where she's always stood between these two men.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." His words are sharp, unforgiving.

Quickly, she fishes out her keys again and unlocks the door. She glances about the room hastily, but Lee's taken to tidying her place when she's at class, and there's nothing much around that might embarrass her in front of the Old Man.

"Can I get you a drink?" she bites her lip, fairly certain the question is part of the proper etiquette for being a good hostess. "A soda or a beer, maybe?" she cringes, knowing the Old Man likes a good, cold red ale, but not sure if it's alright to offer alcohol to a superior officer on such short acquaintance. She'd never even cared about such a thing before, but gods, she wants to get this right so hard, needs to warm those cold features on the Commander's face.

"Thank you, no," Bill Adama shakes his head, not softening a bit.

"You wanna sit down?" she says after another minute of silence, then she cringes, knowing she's screwing this up and neither one of the Adama men are going to help her out here. "The black chair's really comfortable. I got it from this senior who got kicked out of school for plagiarism—not that I knew he was cheating," she winces. "He was good guy, just kind of an idiot," she laughs, and it's more than a little awkward even to her own ears. "Kind of like I feel right now actually."

Commander Adama looks to Lee then back to Kara, a curious expression shining through his eyes, though his mouth remains the same hard line. "Thank you," he finally says, and sits in the black chair after all.

She smiles at what feels like a victory. She flattens a palm at the base of her neck before the hand flutters down to her side. Kara moves over to the couch, and Lee sits down beside her. The gratitude in his eyes helps to make her feel a little less like a schmuck. She grins at Lee then, and he winks in return and smoothes his hand over her pant leg just inside the knee. It tickles, so she kicks his foot and raises an eyebrow. And then he grins back.

When Kara glances up, she sees the elder Adama looking right at her, eyes narrowed and head tilted as if asking a question. She lifts her chin, holds his eye under the scrutiny, but barely. She imagines he's almost stared hard enough and long enough to bore a hole right through her when the Old Man finally switches his gaze over to Lee.

"How long have you been seeing each other?" Adama begins questioning.

Lee sighs. "I know where you're going with this, but you're wrong. My relationship with Kara isn't why I transferred to Headquarters."

"Then why?" the Old Man demands again. "Why would you throw away a promising career as a fighter pilot, perhaps even as the future commander of a battlestar to become a desk jockey, Lee?"

"There are some things about me that you don't need to know," Lee fights back, and right now, she sees that boy she remembers from Zak's funeral, alive and well and written in ink across Lee's features. "You may be my superior officer, you may be my father, but I don't answer to you. This is _my_ life."

The senior Adama glares at his son. "Maybe your life is less your own than you think it is."

Kara feels her brow furrow, turns to Lee just in time to see him narrow his eyes at his father. "What's that supposed to mean?" Lee demands.

Kara shifts in her seat just as Bill Adama leans forward in his chair. "There's talk about you in the Upper Tier," he says after a long minute. "I just," the Commander clears his throat, "found out about it." And by the hedgy sound of his tone, the Old Man had to have been digging where he wasn't supposed to have been. Adama clasps his hands together, then opens them up on either knee. "Did someone…approach you about a different position?" he speaks as delicately as Kara's ever heard him talk. "Something with higher clearance?" and either the Old Man seriously went overboard in how he got his information and doesn't want to involve Lee in it in case his methods come back to bite him on the ass, or he really buys into the legitimacy of the Intelligence Operations' secrecy.

Kara can feel the stare Lee aims at his father from beside her. "No. No one's approached me," Lee returns evenly.

"Really?" The Old Man asks incredulously, then slowly turns his head and directs his stare at Kara. "Who are you, really?" The accusation shouldn't bite into her like it does. Kara understands that she's a stranger to him, but to Kara, he is and always will be _her_ Commander. "What kind of spy are you? Combat intelligence? Counterintelligence? Immersion undercover?" he squints. "Blackbagger?" he saves the harshest for last. Blackbaggers are known to have to cut out everything else but the job from their lives. The rumors of them in polite society always carve them into calculating figures, beyond the simple concept of 'cold' and straight into unconscionable.

Kara swallows hard, wanting to say so much to counter his assumptions, wanting so desperately to feel the kind eyes she once knew from this man. But he doesn't want her words, not really, he only wants a target, and as far as Bill Adama knows, the only person to blame for whatever's going on is her. Still, Kara owes it to him to give him something of substance. "I'm someone who's in the same position as your son," she tells him at last, eyes never straying from his, needing for him to understand and to believe her. "I'm someone who'll always have his back," she promises.

Adama breathes heavily from his nose. "Whatever they've told you, Lee," the Commander turns away from Kara like he didn't hear her speak at all, "it's a lie. That's what Intelligence does for a living. That's what they have to do. It's not a life fit for an honorable man!"

"I just told you no one's approached me. I'm telling you the truth." Lee's hands fist up as he counters his father's argument.

"You wouldn't be able to tell me if you weren't!" the Commander points out. "You can't _possibly_ imagine this is a viable life choice."

Lee narrows his eyes and slowly and deliberately rises from the couch. "Regardless, it's _my_ choice what I do with my life, and if—_if_," he gives the words a hard emphasis, "Intelligence were to approach me about a position, then I would jump at the chance to serve the Colonies, and _you're_ the one who taught me that there's nothing more honorable you can strive for in life."

Adama stands, viciously shakes his head. "This is _not_ who I taught you to be!"

Kara rises beside Lee, squinting at the Old Man as she does because that's a total lie. Even before the End of the Worlds, their Commander has always stressed duty over all else—over love and family, even over Lee.

"What is it that bothers you about the idea of Lee in Intelligence Operations, Commander?" Kara prods, feeling the middle part of her upper lip start to curl in her anger. "Is it that Lee would be choosing a different path of service than you did or is it that _you'd_ be the one kept in the dark for once?" and she's never spoken so to the Old Man before. She's sure he'd be shocked at the venom in her tone if he'd remembered her at all.

Adama takes a step toward them, his eyes practically boring into her with rage, but Kara refuses to flinch, not at this lie he's trying to pass off. "It's not your place or your business to question what goes on between me and my son," he declares, and not long ago, Kara would have agreed and backed away from this conversation with her tail between her legs. Or no, actually, she never would have stepped in between them this way to begin with.

Kara lifts her chin. "My place is beside Lee, and everything about him is my business."

Bill straightens up, his back completely rigid with anger as he tries to dismiss Kara to set his focus on Lee. "You need to make a choice about the kind of man you're going to be."

"I have," Lee laces his fingers with Kara's, and she swallows past a lump in her throat at how readily he aligns himself with her. "That's my point, Dad. It's up to you now."

"You are in _way_ over your head, Lee!" and the way the Old Man says it nearly feels like a curse. It's almost like he's cursing _Lee_. Kara lowers her chin as she watches him do it, and she can't help feeling disappointed in him.

Lee shakes his head and chuffs. "We all are, Dad. You just don't know it yet." And then Lee walks across the room, and opens the front door. "It was good to see you," Apollo tells his father.

Bill glares at his son, seeming, even still, to try to will him to accept his point of view. After a quick glance at Kara, he makes his way to the door, slowly watching Lee as he does. He lays a heavy hand on Lee's shoulder then clasps his neck. He locks eyes with Apollo for a few long seconds, and then he walks out of the apartment without looking back.

Lee gently shuts the door when Kara can hear the elder Adama's footfall on the stairs. Leaning into the doorframe, Lee sighs, and turns to Kara. He offers a half-hearted smile. She tries to smile back under her furrowed brow, but can't quite manage the expression.

Lee walks up to her but then the moment he stands in front of her, she turns her head away from him, not wanting to burden him further with her own disillusionment. When she would've walked away, he yanks on her arm, and forces her to look at him. The harsh sound of a sharp inhalation pops out of her mouth, before she can purse her lips to try to keep it in. She manages to halt that sound of mourning almost as soon as it begins.

And Lee watches her with gentle eyes, and he waits. She feels her face crumple under the weight of that stare, and she can't help it at all. "It's like he's someone else," Kara whispers.

Lee pulls her into him, his grip refusing what little resistance she offers. "He was. He is," Lee comes back just as quietly after he's fitted her against his body, and it's not until she feels how desperate his arms are around her that she realizes how much he needs this connection between them, too. "He was a totally different man before Zak died," Lee confides.

Kara readjusts her body against his, pulling away enough to look at him. "I never got it before," she confides, "what made you so angry with him." She bites her lip. "I wish I didn't understand it now."

Lee doesn't say anything in response, just leans in to place a soft kiss to her cheek. Afterward, they get ready for bed in silence. It's a cold night for the dog days of summer, and they lay close together, almost tightly enough against one another to form one solitary figure in the bed. It's a long time before they go to sleep.


	9. Part 9

**Chapter 20 Running in Place**

When the call from Patterson doesn't come by 0600, Lee volunteers to make Kara a more substantial breakfast than the power bars they'd shared an hour before. She turns him down, saying the phone still might ring, and there's nothing less impressive than puking your guts out in an 8/9ths G's Academy sim. Lee accepts her reasoning with nothing more than a nod, but as he watches her get ready for the day, he notes how she keeps holding onto her stomach like she's already sick. After feeling like he had eyes crawling all over him all day yesterday and then the way the conversation with the Old Man went last night, he can't really say that he feels any differently.

The call offering an open viper sim doesn't come at all, so they go about their day—Kara to class and Lee to Cylon Central. He only works a few baseline flights. Officially, he's decided that he's getting the patterns recorded onto his datapad for their programmer, Cadet Henderson, to analyze and incorporate into their new program when he'll meet up with the Cadet later in the day. Mostly though, Lee's just distracting himself. He really doesn't want to think about yesterday at all, but especially not without Starbuck there with him to ground him so he doesn't feel that edge of panic start to grind him down again.

Lee itches to enter into the sim network and link up with the raptor and viper pilots already engaged in their own sims. He holds off, saving the treat for when Kara arrives. Even though he feels almost desperate to try to work out yesterday's anxiety where it still fidgets through his whole body, he aches even harder to take to the skies with his wingman. There's never been anything in the worlds better than flying with Starbuck to help Lee find his focus and remember where he is so he can figure out where he's going.

Sitting here on the ground, it feels so unnatural to Lee not to have a backup plan to cover their asses just in case—especially for the massive and unbelievable possibility of near extinction looming over their heads. In the air, though, Lee knows it'll all start to come together. It won't even matter that the 'air' is really only an 8/9ths Gs sim as long as Kara's got his wing.

When she finally walks into the Raider Complex after her morning classes, Kara's eyes travel over Lee's body like they always used to when he came back from a mission, checking him for damage. When her gaze meets his, he realizes, to his chagrin, that he's been looking her over in the same way—as if a three hour separation on planet is in any way comparable to combat.

"Hey," Kara calls to him, already in her flight suit, helmet hanging from one hand as she approaches his sim. "You ready for me?" She tilts a hip and lifts an eyebrow. By her stance, it's easy to see, Kara's _at least_ as eager for flight as he is.

Suddenly that tight and achy feeling in his chest loosens up just a bit. "Been ready all day," Lee smirks, but he's not sure the expression quite covers how relieved he is to see her.

Kara walks up close beside him. "Well, don't let me set you off too early, then," she smirks right back, though her eyes are still wide open and keep glancing him over like she can't stop it.

"Don't worry," he winks and grabs her hand maybe a little tighter than he should. It's still just a little touch, though, not like he's spinning her in circles after coming home from war or anything. "I'll come through for you."

She grins hugely and squeezes his fingers. When she lets him go a moment later, she scans her card into the access panel of the raider sim next to his. She steps into the outdated cockpit just as he ducks back into his own. They hold eye contact until the canopy closes.

There are no communications officers in Cylon Central—an oversight in and of itself—but since few individuals earn the right to fly in the sim raiders and since programmers who can truly simulate cylon communications are tagged for the Intelligence and Operations branch as soon as possible, it's difficult to create enough stability in the system to manage a flight team for the sims. And so Starbuck and Apollo open up a secure line between them, talk to each other in near-whispers and hums as the stars appear on the screens around them. The Fleet's information on Jump ships and raider take-offs is still limited and what they do know is classified, so raider sims always begin in the dead of space.

They take a couple minutes to move with each other through the faux night sky, both of them imitating cylon moves they'd seen after the end of the worlds and incorporating the style into their own. Since Lee'd had all day to play around in the raider sim, Starbuck feels her way with her own raider a little longer now, getting used to the movements. Apollo keeps to her nine o'clock and complements her motions. And just like that, the tension that's kept building in his body all day melts right through the floor of the raider as Starbuck flies his wing.

"Let's call the kids," Kara declares once she's settled into the foreign bird.

"Honey, we're home," Apollo grins as he joins the active sim pool with her.

"Viper squad on Orion's port," Starbuck points out right away.

His eyes follow her direction to the dozen birds on his Dradis. "Not a full CAP?" he wonders aloud.

"Not yet, anyway," and her grin comes across the wire loud and clear.

"You want to draw 'em out or go for broke?" he posits, though he already knows what she'll want.

That rough chuckle of hers warms him to his fingertips. "Have you ever known me to play it safe? Balls to the wall, baby! Woo-hoo!" and she takes it hot, aimed right at Orion's center axis.

His feet bid him to follow her without thought, his own grin so wide across his face it seems to lift his helmet.

At the moment, theirs are the only raiders in the sim, human-navigated or otherwise. However, instrumentation tells Apollo there's a Jump Ship five thousand kilometers behind them. He flips 180 to check their six visually, confirming Dradis. He twists back quickly but carefully because the maneuver can often cause a bitch of a horizontal spin if executed improperly, and, at these speeds, not everyone's reflexes can hack it. He feels the thrill all the way down to his toes as he twists back to center with his raider. His eyes lock back onto the players in front of him the moment his turn's complete.

"Only the jump ship's at our back," he tells Kara, exhaling heavily as he does, the tight motions of his bird soothing him just a little more.

"Nothing on our 'z'," she relays in turn, and Lee can hear a quiet hum of satisfaction through the comm, and he knows Kara shares the peace he feels as they synchronize their motions.

They don't speak another word as they go in for the first kill. They don't have to. They shoot at the three, four-wing groupings as they fly through the vipers. The blitz takes out five birds. The remaining nuggets don't even have time to regroup before Starbuck and Apollo duck and flip around to catch them again. The squad's out a total of seven pilots before the kids can even complete their in-flights.

"Hmm," Starbuck hums into the mic as they pass the outside range of the vipers' guns. "Not very sporting was it?"

Lee grins anew, "Then let's make it a little more interesting."

"Ooh, Lee Adama, I love it when you get that devious tone in your voice," and he wishes he could see her smile 'cause he knows it's a big one, can feel the thrill of her joy straight over the comms.

"They've gotta learn somehow," Apollo lifts an eyebrow above the grin settled across his features.

She chuckles, "And we are _such_ good teachers."

"My thinking exactly," he bares his teeth. "Up for a chase?"

"Always," she wiggles her wings at him. "You're it!" she hollers and dives down and back towards the nuggets.

"Starbuck!" he yells back at her even as he shoves his stick forward and rolls into position behind her. "You're gonna pay for that!" he warns though he enjoys hunting her as much as she loves to be pursued by him.

"Yeah? And who's going to make me?" she taunts. "You? I'd like to see you try."

"You'll see more than 'trying' when I'm nailing your ass to the side of the Orion," he cautions though he knows there's too much humor in his tone to pull off the warning.

"Ooh, Lee, say that to me one more time, but lick your lips first," her sweet alto intones over the wireless.

"Frak, Kara!" he's laughing so hard he chokes out the words.

"My thinking exactly," she comes back saucily.

"One thing at a time, Kara," he tells her just as they come back into range of the remaining viper pilots.

"Spoilsport!" she teases, dodging the bullets coming from the single re-formed wing.

Lee jukes with her, shaking his head at the single grouping, though he's glad to have his mind narrowed to this single task. The young pilots obviously believe in the old adage of having safety in numbers, but they'd have been better off against a small force of superior fighters by separating into two wings. All he and Kara have to do is spritz a few rounds in their direction and those who don't catch the bullets would get taken out by the ones that had. But then, what would be the fun in that?

Kara and Lee zigzag across the sky, flirting in and out of the vipers' range.

"Check out the lead pilot?" Apollo asks when they zag once more towards Orion.

"Yep. He's new with the stick, but he's got good instincts. Let's leave him for last."

"He's the one keeping them together," Lee points out. "We won't get a good judge of the other players if we don't take him out first."

"Yeah, but if we do take him out first, then the other nuggets won't have a rally point. And then, tsch," she pulls her lips from her teeth with a loud snick. "Game over."

Lee crinkles his nose and concedes to her reasoning, "Alright. Let's take it aft then."

He no sooner finishes speaking then the two of them both reverse power of their engines long enough to let the nuggets zoom by them. They resume their forward speed a nanosecond later, each of them already targeting a single viper in the formation. Lee takes the one farthest to port, and Kara creams the pilot clinging to starboard. The skies alight with fire. The remaining three vipers from the head of the wing scramble, as if avoiding the debris, even though the wreckage could never have touched them at their current velocity.

Apollo and Starbuck use the panic against them, each of the experienced pilots tracks a nugget, Lee again takes port, and Kara goes starboard. They let the leader go. Their pursuit of the vipers shakes the young pilots and the nuggets break formation. Hysteria written in every jerky motion, the kids try juking, try spinning, try flipping. No matter what they do or where they lead, neither of them can shake their pursuers.

Their young leader tries to intercept Apollo's pursuit, offering himself as prey by trying to work his way in between Lee and his distressed pilot. Lee's not dissuaded from his task in the least. Apollo could take out both of the nuggets now with just a few squeezes of his stick. He doesn't because these kids should know this feeling of dogged pursuit, of arbitrary engagement if they want to have a chance of making it against some real toasters. They deserve to have that chance.

When the young leader slips the stick and doesn't quite make the turn with Apollo and his nugget prey, Lee lets loose with the artillery, just barely changing vectors in time to avoid becoming part of the crash. The head kid immediately opens fire on Apollo, who easily dodges those bullets.

"Incoming," Apollo warns Starbuck as he comes up on her 4 o'clock.

Before she can respond, the kid Kara's chasing tries going 180, but he spins out of control before he can complete the turn. She shoots him immediately, and Lee knows it's a reflex to keep the nugget from becoming a danger to her.

"Frak!" she nearly spits the word.

Lee clears his throat. The nugget leader's still on his tail and now more fervently trying to stay with Lee and take him out. However, the kid's aim is rougher now, all over the place, really. Lee barely even needs to alter his course to avoid him.

"Let's end it," Kara says, her bird becoming larger in Lee's canopy window.

"I want the shot," Lee asserts.

"Take it," she races towards him to catch his back just as Apollo flips around to fly backward.

Lee's careful with his aim, going for precision. He blindly guides his bird backwards, knowing Kara's his eyes right now, and then Lee squeezes the trigger. A burst of fluid emits from his target with the second bullet, and Lee knows he got the coolant, just like he was trying to. Lee flies away from the kid's dying bird, watches the viper's course stagnate until it can't veer one way or the other in the slightest, so that even though the bird keeps its speed via inertia, it's still dead in the water, easy pickings. The kid strikes back with the rest of his ammo, shooting insistently even though he can't move at all, can't even angle his guns, and of course Lee and Kara aren't going to go anywhere near his line of fire.

"He needed to know what it's like," Lee watches the lights flash as the nugget tries to restart the dead bird, but his mind veers back to yesterday's Colonel and the inevitability the man's come to stand for in Lee's mind. "Sometimes there's nothing you can do," Lee declares even though a part of him hopes that's not the case for the situation he's in right now. The truth is though, that Lee knows Kara's ultimately right: The two of them need to narrow their focus and their actions to the Fleet itself and what they can do _within_ it in order to attain their goal. And so Lee hopes they really are getting recruited by the Upper Tier. He hopes even harder that that's all they need to have or be in order to find a way to help their people defeat the Cylons.

"Come on," Kara bids Lee solemnly, setting a course for the Jump Ship.

He follows her afterburners, and they go, leaving the head nugget alive, though Lee feels the kid's torture like it's his own.

Before he and Kara can get within two thousand kilometers of the Jump Ship, Lee's Dradis beeps at him: Multiple contacts emanating from the Orion.

"Round two?" he asks Starbuck if she wants to keep going.

"You bet your ass," she declares, merriment returning to her voice as she angles her bird for the new fight.

When they pass the lead nugget's dead viper on the way back towards Orion, they leave him alive again. The kid'll either have to wait to be 'killed' or 'rescued,' or he'll have to exit the sim himself.

The new wave of fighters from Orion includes 24 vipers and four raptors.

The vipers form up two squadrons at 10 and 2 on the clock, angling toward the Jump Ship. Then they make for Starbuck and Apollo. A single raptor follows each of the squadrons, while another stays close to Orion and the fourth makes for the dead viper.

Kara's voice is level over the comm. "What do you think?"

"Mmm," he hums, tilting his head to one side as a jolt of anticipation has him refocusing on the moment, burning everything else in his mind away for now. "Make 'em come to us. Fly it tight and use their numbers against them."

"It'll at least teach them a little more about situational awareness," she agrees, and there's that smirk back in her voice. "Let the raptor rescue the kid," and he doesn't have to see her to know she's looking at the drifting viper. "They'll need practice at towing the birds in."

Lee lifts his brows. "You want to let them do the tow? They're more likely to have to catch an ejected pilot in practice."

"Yeah, but how often do they tie the lines in the sims?" she points out.

He shrugs. They fly casually, relaxed. He hears her soft breath in the open line between them while they wait for the vipers to close the distance. The two squads separate into three as they close in.

"That was nicely executed," Kara compliments the maneuver, which can often be a struggle for new pilots to perform.

The newly formed squadron of ten vipers comes right at them. Starbuck and Apollo let the other two groupings—each consisting of seven birds—flank them on either side. They wait until the nuggets are nearly in position and then they rush the center line, weaving along the elliptical of the battle as they go.

A kid on the starboard flank manages to shoot down one of his brethren on the port side. The flanks cease fire about twenty seconds later—which is _way_ too much later. In those long seconds, the nuggets manage to wound two more of their own birds, disabling at least one of them.

Lee and Kara fire as they ram through the center flank. The vipers, now gunshy, shoot towards them only sparsely as the flanks try to regroup. The kids let Starbuck and Apollo escape to a safe distance, seemingly to work on their strategy.

"_That_ on the other hand was frakkin' embarrassing," Kara's tone lowers in disappointment. "The flight instructors _really _need totalk to these kids about intercept protocol."

"You're not kidding," Lee turns 180 degrees to peek at the debris behind them, using Starbuck's raider right beside him to guide the motion. "We need some real competition out here," he sighs, wishing for that moment when the world whittles down to his bird and his wingman. Lee shoots toward the nuggets as Starbuck pilots their course. Their range from the targets is a little too far to be very accurate, but he still manages to light up two fireballs.

"Eh," he can practically see her shrug a shoulder, and he wonders if she's got as much unexpected antsiness lingering as he does. "Lunch time is prime nugget hours," she points out. "Let's clear the board, and if nothing more interesting comes along, we can just break until early evening. There should at least be some instructors, maybe some pilots from Headquarters coming over by then."

One of the raptor pilots scurries away as Starbuck and Apollo draw closer, not even taking time to gather any intel on their birds.

Beside him Kara's incredulous at the move. "Wow."

Lee flips back around to face forward, does a visual check at Kara's bird to readjust his distance from her. "Let's take off the gloves," he suggests.

Her response is to come around, twisting to starboard. He twists with her, and they move together to face the nuggets. He and Kara shoot down another eight of the 20 vipers still in the battle within a minute. Another three birds are lost to friendly fire, two to battle confusion when they drift into one another while trying to come around and rejoin the battle after Kara and Lee execute a sharp turn.

"Multiple Dradis contacts," Kara turns her raider toward the Orion with interest.

"I count five," Lee comes back.

"Confirmed."

The new vipers form up immediately, smoothly, with one wing consisting of three birds, a second of two.

"This looks promising," Kara declares with amusement.

Lee does a visual confirmation as they get closer. "More coming from the tubes," he says just before the latest ships become distinguishable from Orion on Dradis.

"Oh, we are definitely getting somewhere now!" Kara spins the raider in glee as the make for the newest vipers, the seven remaining vipers from the latest battle hot, well mild anyway, on their tail.

The two new launches bring four groupings, 11 vipers total, coming at them from Orion, each of the wings only consisting of two or three vipers. In splitting into smaller groups, they spread farther out into the sky, covering more ground as they cast a net towards Starbuck and Apollo.

Lee and Kara avoid the noose this time, taking the long way to starboard and drawing the fresh pilots out and away from Orion.

The screen in front of Lee beeps, and someone must be monitoring their flight from back at Cylon Central because all of a sudden there are more raiders on the horizon, "Dradis is coming alive at the Jump Ship, too," Apollo tells Starbuck.

"How many raiders?" Kara asks for the count while she keeps her eye on the vipers creeping up on their tail.

Lee waits a moment for the number of blips to cease multiplying. "I count a full squadron, but they're not in visual range yet," he shifts his gaze out the canopy to let Starbuck confirm the count.

"Okay, I see twelve, too," her words are interrupted by the distinct whoosh-bang of a missile firing.

He turns and wiggles the stick to get a quick look behind him. "Heat seeker!" he hollers as soon as he sees it.

They both turn hard to port, circling in a wide arc towards Orion.

Kara puts a bit of space between the two of them, causing their shared heat trail to dissipate slightly as their engines gain a bit of distance from each other.

"Did it grab us?" Lee asks, keeping his eyes ahead of them while Kara checks.

"Umm," she watches, and all of a sudden they have to start dodging gunfire. "Nope, it sailed right past. Not close enough to us," she declares as she jukes back and forth.

Starbuck pulls back towards Lee, and flips to fire behind them when he's close enough to guide her as she flies backward. "Woo-hoo. Eat that, nuggets!" her jubilance comes on the heels of a lightshow behind Lee.

Kara keeps firing, and they both keep dodging.

"Coming up on the raptor near Orion," he lets her know. "I want to put it in between us and the vipers."

"Ooh, good idea. These bus drivers are jumpy as hell," she continues unloading her ammo, moving still closer to Lee so they can fly a little tighter, maneuver a little more quickly.

"You see the other raiders yet?" he asks since she's more or less facing that direction.

"I can see the light bursts from ammo discharging, but that's it. They must have engaged the first grouping of vipers," she reports.

He feels the aftershocks of another couple explosions behind him.

"Got three with that blast," Kara brags.

Lee just pays enough attention to what's going on at his six to keep with Starbuck as she slides across the sky. He squints his focus towards the bird in front of them.

Lee narrows his eyes, "We've gotta book it, or the raptor's gonna ghost."

"Yes, because I'd previously decided to fly slowly since we only had eleven vipers on our ass," he can almost see those eyes roll.

He straightens out his bird, setting an exact course for the raptor, "Give me some space," he orders. "I'm gonna flip it, and then we can use missiles to gain some speed."

She immediately complies. They each shoot off a rocket the second Lee makes 180, causing the vipers on their trail to scramble. They still catch two of the kids with the blasts. The boost from the missile also helps them pick up another half-G.

"Frak me," Lee curses, seatbelt practically cutting a hole through his suit as the gravity pushes him forward.

"And here I thought you said one thing at a time," Kara just barely grunts out, as affected by the G's as he is.

He glances down to Dradis. "Almost there. Ready to flip it back around?"

"Just so you know, if you spin out now, I will _never_ let you live it down," she warns haltingly as she fights for air.

The chuff that escapes him would have been a chuckle if he'd had the breath. "In three…two…one."

Starbuck and Apollo flip back around as one. Lee's wings wobble just a touch, but he holds it steady. A brief wave of dizziness hits him, but it's there and gone within seconds; he's nowhere near G-LOC. The exhilaration that comes with the wooziness balloons and sticks around, stretching Lee's senses until his body seems to flatten into the raider, meld with it.

The lone raptor fills his window immediately after he flips back around. He reacquires the target in nothing flat, taunts it, keeps it in his sights.

"Frak it. Check the Dradis," Kara orders. "The vipers are fifteen seconds out at least."

"Eh," he winces at the delay, knowing the raptor will microjump before the vipers arrive. He shoots the bird rather than to let it escape. "There are three of them left," he reasons. "We can scare another one into the line of fire."

"Aww, Lee, that's so sweet," she gushes, her voice saccharine. "You really know how to show a girl a good time, don't you?"

His whole body—his whole frakkin' bird—seems to smile at her tease. "Nothing but the best for you, 'Buck. And hey," Lee twists his raider to flirt with hers. "We've got a straight shot to Orion now. Let's see if the landing bays could use a little remodeling."

"Oh, wow. You really _do_ know how to show a girl a good time," her intonation rises and quickly falls like the crest and crash of a wave, and her bird seems to follow suit. She flies below and around him. By instinct, he twirls his raider down and below hers. She follows the pattern, and they weave a brief Reverse Twist—narrower than anything Lee's ever done in a viper—for maybe five kilometers before they break apart as they approach Orion's range.

Orion's heavy artillery is difficult to aim at a target as fast and agile as a raider. The big guns are meant more for distance, speed, and the massive payload they discharge when they slam into the side of a ship. That doesn't stop whoever's been listening to the chatter in the viper SimCon from trying to hit Starbuck and Apollo with a lucky shot.

One of the explosions gets a little too close for comfort. The shockwave knocks Lee's raider off balance. He has to roll with the concussive force to keep his bird intact.

"Apollo!" Kara yells.

"I'm okay. Not a scratch," he sets his plane to rights.

"Good, because that could have been _really_ embarrassing," she teases in that low tone that drives him wild.

"Yeah, yeah. Keep 'em coming, Kara," he shoots back, grin intact.

That low, satisfied chuckle of hers bubbles up, "I will if you will, Lee."

They come up onto the Orion and slip right into her port landing bay. They shoot it to pieces, not really causing much in the way of true damage as the area has to be stable enough to withstand explosions during its daily use and was built to that end. Still, two small ships slipping past all the small spacecraft and frakking with the battlestar is an incredible insult to morale.

Starbuck and Apollo pop out of the landing bay just in time to see the vipers come into artillery range. Orion ceases fires immediately, and then the two of them practically hug the ship as the nuggets circle above them. The kids don't fire because even if they landed a direct hit and didn't accidentally let loose on the Orion itself, the fiery death of a raider over the battleship could cause secondary explosions across the carrier, and potentially lead to the Orion's death.

Lee and Kara start taking potshots at the kids. They hit a couple here and there, some even severely, but it isn't until Lee catches a viper coming towards him that a true fireball ignites over the carrier and slams into the stern, near the engines.

All the vipers break away at that point. It'd be the perfect opportunity for them to take out the Orion if only he and Kara had a big enough payload.

"Too bad we don't have a nuke," Kara says exactly what's on Lee's mind.

"Another time."

"Check it out," she bids him. "The other raiders are finally bringing the fight in towards Orion."

He looks. "Hmm. Oh, wait, wow," movement catches Lee's eye as he brings his gaze back to center. "We've got more vipers launching right now. Let's take it towards space," he orders because there's no telling how capable the new players are.

As soon as they gain a bit of distance from the Orion, the vipers are back on their tail.

"Can you see how many new ships are out there?" Apollo asks.

"At least—frak!" she cuts herself off as a couple bullets rip through her wing. He watches as she wiggles her raider experimentally, assessing the damage. He winces at the wound, though he can see immediately that it's not bad. She briefly straightens out again before twisting back to normal. "I think there's another eight players on the board," she finally tells him.

They glide together, movements complementing each other as they weave in and out and around the vipers. They shoot down a few more, and then the other raiders make it to the middle firefight.

There's six raiders remaining. They blast into the wall of vipers, trying to maneuver up to Starbuck and Apollo. The raiders lose two more of their number and can't quite make it inside viper territory.

"Let's get lost inside the raiders and regroup," Kara proposes.

Lee winces. "Okay, but I want you back at my wing ASAP."

"Aye, aye, sir," she says with not a little irony, but he can hear the pleased smile in her voice that he wants her by his side.

Lee jukes 'n shoots his way through the viper wall separating him and Kara from the other raiders. And in that moment, with Kara still at his side, it's like the skirmish slowly starts to still around him as he and Starbuck zoom through enemy ranks, cleanly, purely—as untouchable as the stars themselves. The vipers around them move as if in slow motion. He squeezes his trigger finger, watching the birds light up and fall from the sky. And it's horrible to think that these kids might actually die this way, but right here, right now, it's like there's nothing more perfect than flying through the vastness of space connected to his bird and his wingman while the pyrotechnics light the way.

When they succeed in reaching the other raiders, he bites the inside of his cheek, checks Dradis and says, "Raiders four and nine on me. Twelve, two, and five on Starbuck." Lee honestly _does_ agree that they're more likely to kill a greater number of vipers and keep more of their raiders alive if they separate and each lead a charge of raiders, but that doesn't mean he has to like it.

Kara hums in disdain at being given the extra raider, but she accepts the order anyway, grouping the raiders up with her in two by two formation while Lee takes lead in his own grouping.

Starbuck and Apollo separate as soon as they form their wings. She takes it low to starboard to circle back around to the nuggets, and he flies high to port.

Apollo pulls off a couple attack runs, shoot and run style, teasing the pilots in a little closer each time. He peeks toward Starbuck when one of the raiders disappears from his Dradis, but he spots her right away, ducking and gliding from her pursuers with grace. He pulls his attention back to his own squad and boxes a viper right into his trap. The bird spirals out of control and right into another nugget.

The board's nearly clear when Dradis explodes with contacts again. Kara shoots down the last of the vipers in the immediate battle.

"Twenty-five new contacts on Dradis," he tells her as she comes back around to him.

"Looks like we're getting a reputation," the amusement in her voice is undeniable. "We might have to break out some hot moves in a minute."

Kara forms up on his wing…and he breathes. The moment he spots her through the canopy, the tension across his back eases completely. He rolls his neck in relief and lets her be his eyes for that brief second. They look toward the Orion together, twenty-five new vipers zooming across the sky in challenge.

"Bring it on," Lee declares to the universe at large, the feel of Kara on his wing spurring him onward.

And they fly into the fight together, and what's more, Lee's sure they're going to win.


	10. Part 10

Posted with thanks to everyone who's ever reviewed any incarnation of this story, especially ears, Galexz, Remake, MSerrada, roselily29, sydcasy, Shattered-Destiny00, Sic Vita Est and others whom I have not been able to respond to**.**

Also posted with thanks to Taragel for so consistently beta'ing the story and to koolaidmom11 for her spectacular and enduring cheerleading.

* * *

**Chapter 21 Burn with Me**

They don't exit the sim for another three hours, only leaving when Kara's alarm goes off to remind her of Officer Targets at four o'clock.

They're completely drenched by the time they open the hatches and leave the raiders. When Kara pulls off her helmet, she can feel the new trickles of sweat trailing down her back. The cool air of the sim hangar soothes Kara's skin the second it kisses against it.

She rushes over to Apollo at the foot of his ladder, a little unsteady on her feet as she readjusts to the planet's gravity and comparative lack of motion.

She throws an arm around Lee's shoulders. "What a rush!"

He grins, utterly lacking in self-consciousness, and grabs her back, mixing their sweat together in a totally disgusting and completely inviting way. He pulls her away for a minute to babble excitedly to her face, "I thought for sure that last nugget run was going to get us. Frakkin' awesome move riding the raptor's FTL to shoot off your last rocket."

"It _was_ pretty inspiring, wasn't it?" she pushes against his arm, and he pushes back. "I liked the way you sacrificed that raider. I thought those Fleet pilots were going to piss themselves when they watched you shoot it into the Orion," she says, grin so wide her lips are nearly glued to her teeth. "And please, do you really think we were up against nuggets at that point?"

He smirks. "They're all nuggets."

She chuckles and lets her hand fall to her side.

"I need a shower." Lee clasps her shoulder hard. "And so do you," he crinkles his brow.

She glances downward and looks up at him through heavy lids, "I'll share my shower rations with you, if you share yours with me," forget that water for showers isn't rationed planetside.

He kisses her, tasting of salt and stale air. "You've only got twenty minutes to get halfway across campus."

"So we'll be quick," she kisses him one more time, sweat stinging her lips as she does.

He lifts his brow and smacks her ass. She screeches a laugh, and they walk together towards the locker room. They each grab a water bottle and down the contents, tossing the plastic into the recycling bin by the door. They throw their flightsuits into the laundry and stack their helmets in the line to be cleaned. Despite Lee's acquiescence in the raider hangar, a part of Kara is still surprised when he climbs into the same shower stall that she does. She yanks on his arm to welcome him in.

There's no time to do anything interesting, but he soaps down her body with a definite promise of later in every glide of his fingertips. She returns the favor, giving him a quick jerk below the belt that makes him gasp underneath the showerhead. Even still, they're dried and dressed in less than ten minutes. Kara pulls back her hair and zooms toward the exit, planting one last kiss against Lee's lips as she rushes out the side door and busts out of Cylon Central.

There's a crowd near the front door to the sim. She crinkles her brow, wondering if it's another student protest against the cylon sims in favor of emphasizing dogfights between Colony-based spacecraft over teaching techniques against cylons. She shakes her head. The idiots actually believe that inter-Colonial war is a greater threat than the cylons returning.

Kara picks up the pace, runs toward the Thirty-Second—the memorial building created in honor of the 32nd infantry decimated at the farthest Aerlon outpost at the start of the First Cylon War. Officer Targets are always held in memorial buildings to remind the new Fleet members of who they are and who they've promised to be.

She just barely makes it on time, takes a seat in the back, per her usual routine. She immediately checks out of the meeting, staring at the wall and just remembering to holler back when they call her name. Her mind shifts focus between the events of the day before and thoughts of her once-upon-a-time best friend Helo.

Kara'd promised him she would tell him what was going on, and now she can't. The thing is, she's dying to tell Helo what's happened, but she doesn't want to talk to this young kid she barely knows. She wants to talk to her own Helo, her friend who's stood by her from the day they met on Galactica. It was probably foolish of her to bring him into her and Lee's life this far. But it had been so hard to imagine then, that the people she loved didn't love her back.

She wonders now if she's cost her and Lee anything, if she's cost Helo anything, by trying to include her old friend into their new lives. But of all the people she trusts in the worlds, Lee is the only one who trusts her back anymore. A part of her doesn't think it should matter. She has Lee and that's more important than anything, but she still wants so badly for both of them to be able to lean on someone else, too. But there's no one.

As class drags on, she rolls her eyes through a cooperative exercise and a brief, participation required discussion on differences in leadership style and how they can affect the people under your command. The ridiculous hour is up none too soon, and yet she moves slowly from the room, gathering her notebook and her thoughts in slow motion.

She waves off a couple people with promises of 'later' when they try to talk to her as she's going out the door. She's due to be in Raptor C SimCon, due to meet up with Helo. Once she's out of the building and the warm summer breeze blows through her hair, she automatically sets out at her regular pace, making it to the sims in less than five minutes. She ducks into the locker room when she gets there, still undecided as to what she could possibly say to her old friend. She's always trusted Helo enough to let her mouth run free about the things that really matter. Could she really tie her tongue up and keep from saying a word about anything important?

Kara changes clothes automatically, gathering her badge and throwing her clothes into an empty locker. She sits on the nearest bench, bows her head, and rubs her hands together. She covers her mouth with her palms. "Frak," she sighs.

"Starbuck!" her head shoots up at hearing her name. And there's Helo, right in front of her, grinning in that way he has that makes her feel like she could tell him the stupidest thing she's ever done and he'd only smirk and try to top it.

"Hey," she drops her hands, and her brow furrows.

He straightens his posture. "Lookin' pretty serious for a 'jock in a flightsuit," he observes.

She smiles back and shrugs. "Heard the starting center for the Aquarian Deltas got suspended for a drug charge."

She feels Helo's eyes on her, maybe five seconds, before he sighs and sits down heavily beside her, pressing his arm against hers. "Frakkin' bastard," Karl finally responds. "He's gonna ruin their season."

"Yeah," Kara answers.

"They've still got a good left responder," he points out. "They can always bump him up."

She shrugs. "Not really the same though, is it?"

He bumps her shoulder with his. "Doesn't have to be the same as long as the team still works."

She glances up at him and lifts an eyebrow. "Oh, no?"

Karl shakes his head, his eyes as sweet and open as they've always been with her, so different from looking into the Old Man's cold, hard gaze last night, and she can't help but smile in response.

Leaning back a bit where she sits on the bench, she widens her eyes and quips, "Guess it's time to regroup then."

Karl keeps his smile on her. "Let's go fly, Starbuck," he tempts her after a moment.

She looks up at Helo, seeing her old friend in his eyes, and she winks.

They walk to their assigned raptor side by side, bitching about the delays in the pro pyramid season due to the recent ref strikes. Neither one of them mentions the promise Kara doesn't keep.

Only a little later, when she's forcing Karl to slow motion his landings so he can get a better sense of sequencing, he turns the topic towards the latest campus gossip.

"You heard about the Cylon Killers yet?" his grin grows wider as he asks.

Kara narrows her eyes, "Someone's killing cylons?" she returns, and even though it can't possibly be what it sounds like, hope bursts to life inside her to imagine somebody's out there putting those bastards down.

"No, no, no," Karl shakes his head as he misses the catch once again, and pulls up the raptor—gods help them—in slow motion—to make another go of it. "They're Killer Cylons. _Cylons_ that are killing," he clarifies at what's got to be a hell of a confused look on her face.

Kara lowers her chin and her voice. "Cylons are killing people?" she questions, even though she knows, by Karl's jovial tone alone that it isn't true. Or at least it isn't real.

Karl grins, apparently at being able to share fresh gossip with somebody new. "Can't believe nobody told you yet," he lifts a brow and then pretty well gives up on trying to fly. "Couple hotshots in Cylon Central took down like a thousand vipers today in the sims. Those pilots stayed in there over _three hours_ straight, and then they just dropped out of the sim because nobody could even _touch_ them."

Kara purses her lips, feels her eyes go broad. "Seems a little outrageous," she raises her brows and looks out the screen in front of them, putting the raptor back into real time and taking the bird over. "I mean, a thousand viper kills?" it was nowhere near that. She'd had fifty-nine kills, and Lee'd only had more because he managed to use one of the raptor's nukes against a full squadron.

"Well, maybe not a thousand," Karl allows with a tilted smile, "but they took out a _lot_ of pilots. I mean instructors were pushing anyone of lower rank out of their birds in order to try their hand against them."

Kara clears her throat, "Yeah?" she feels the grin starting at the corners of her mouth. "Anybody I'd know?" she prods, wiggling her shoulders a little in pride.

"Probably everybody," Karl declares, "but I do know for sure that Colonel Kinney got shot down."

Her head zipping to Karl, Kara's mouth drops, "You're kidding!" Colonel "Hungry" Kinney was the best dogfighting tactics instructor in the history of the academy.

Helo licks his bottom lip in pleasure at seeing her shock. He shakes his head. "Nope."

She bites her lip to whiteness, but Kara can't possibly stop the grin splitting across her face. Was it her who shot Kinney down? Or was it Lee? Gods, she hopes it was her. She wonders how she might be able to pull off checking out the instructor's reel to know for sure. Maybe if she got Lee to distract Patterson somehow…

Kara tilts her chin to the side. Even if she can't see the film or the stats, she's still got Karl, who is, hands down, the best informed gossip she's ever met. "So what else are people saying about these pilots?" she's feeling a little too giddy to quite look Helo's way.

"Well," Karl draws out the word in that hyped way he gets when he's imparting social knowledge. "A bunch of the pilots they shot down went out to greet them as they were leaving Cylon Central."

Kara's eyes zoom right over to Helo, belatedly remembering the grouping of kids outside the building whom she'd assumed were protestors, "Yeah?" she prods warily, and not a little guiltily thinking of the way she'd left Lee behind.

Helo nods. "They only found one of the raider pilots, but before they could even offer to buy him a drink, the guy bolted out of there like there were toasters on his ass."

"Ha!" the laughter bubbles up completely without her permission, and gods—she can just see that hunted look Lee gets about him before he would've turned and taken off like a jackrabbit. "Did they, um," she has to stop to laugh, "did they try to go after him?"

"Oh, yeah," Helo nods and turns to face her more fully in his chair, and Kara just laughs harder. "This guy I know from an old Tactics class, his ex-girlfriend's little brother was there, and he said—"

"He who?" Kara interrupts through guffaws to try to follow.

"The little brother," Helo clarifies.

"Oh," Kara nods shakily, swiping at her eye with one hand.

"So anyway, he was one of the people on the raider pilot's six for a while, but the guy would _not_ stop running, even though the group following him kept saying they only wanted to ask him how he did it," and when Kara looks over again, Karl's eyes are shining with glee at her reaction. "The guy had some serious stamina—"

Kara grins even more widely through her snickering but doesn't bother to verbalize the dirty joke in her head, even to Helo.

"Scuttlebutt is," Karl continues, "the raider pilot was on leave from some special assignment, and was supposed to keep a low profile, which is why he ran."

"Wow!" Kara can't keep the images from running full speed in her head. "Hahaha," her stomach spasms uncontrollably with the hilarity of it all—Lee must have been horrified by the attention! "So, uh, what," she clears her throat, "what happened to his wingman?" Kara lifts a brow Karl's way because she can't _not_ ask.

"Don't know." Helo shakes his head, grin as big as hers. "Somebody saw a woman leaving through a side door a few minutes before the pilot came out, but nobody followed her and they don't know if she was in the other raider or not."

Kara nods and bites her lip. "Right," and that sets her off her laughter anew.

"Didn't think it was _that_ funny 'Buck," and when she turns to look at Helo, he's got those patient eyes on her—the ones that realize you know more than you're telling and are just waiting for you to give in to the urge to say something.

She tucks her chin and lifts both brows, all but acknowledging his suspicions that she's got more information than he does.

"Oh, come on!" Karl flails both hands in frustration when she doesn't say anything after a moment. "You know something!" he accuses, grin set in every line of his face. "Give it up, Starbuck," he orders playfully. "You _know_ you want to," and that—that flirty flick of his eyelashes and the tilt of his smile—that's _her_ Helo cajoling her, and Kara finds she can't say no.

"You're not going to believe me," she warns, directing her eyes back out the canopy, but keeping all her attention on Karl and his almost sentient anticipation beside her.

"I will! I will!" Karl promises, and lays a brief, teasing hand at Kara's elbow. "Come on!" he begs again. "You've gotta give me something!"

She turns to him and squints like she's considering. He grins at the look, and she knows he knows she's already given in. "Just between you and me?" she lifts a brow.

"I swear!" he draws an 'x' over his heart, enjoying the game as much as she is.

"Okay," Kara lets go of the controls, giving up even the pretense of flying as she turns her body totally towards Helo.

"It was Lee, the pilot they caught," she confides with glee.

"Lee _Adama_?" Helo's brows shoot up when he comes back just as excitedly. "No way!" he denies, but Kara can tell Helo believes her instantly, seeming to trust her words as much in this moment as he ever has. "And his wingman?" Helo eyes her up and down, and before she so much as opens her mouth, she knows Helo's got the whole thing set up with the right players in his mind.

"You're looking at her," she confirms.

"Holy frak, Kara!" Helo smacks her arm.

"I know!" she hits him right back.

"Ha!" Karl sets off chuckling an instant later. "Oh, gods, Adama was running away from a pack of groupies!"

Kara nods, her own mirth reigniting. "I know!" she laughs in delight.

"Gods, he must have hated that!" Helo's sniggering just as hard now as Kara was a moment ago.

"He totally would have, wouldn't he?" she can barely get the question out through her glee.

"Uh!" Helo groans. "I can't believe you made me promise not to tell anyone!" he bangs his head lightly against the back of the seat. "This has got to be the biggest scoop of the semester."

"Yeah," Kara tilts her head unsympathetically, still grinning. "Too bad you're a man of your word, huh, Helo?" she teases.

He levels his stare at her. "You officially suck, Starbuck,"

"Please," she gives him a shake of her head. "You love having secrets from other people."

"Yeah, I do," he admits, that gentle smile that lets you know your confessions are safe with him reasserts itself. "But how do _you_ know that? And how is it," Helo continues, "that every time I talk to you, I get the sense that you already know most of my secrets, and _I'm_ the one who told you them."

And it's as though Kara's heart stops. Her lashes flutter downward and away, but she can feel Helo's continued gaze on her nonetheless. "I think you'd remember if you had," she points out the flaw in his logic.

"Yeah, you would think so, wouldn't you?" he agrees. "But there's something about you, Starbuck, that I can't put my finger on, and it's got something to do with Adama—Apollo," Helo corrects himself. "It's starting to make me think—" Karl cuts himself off with a huff of laughter.

"What?" Kara looks back over at him, realizing her tone's practically begging him to continue.

Helo shakes his head, but it's not in refusal. It's more like he's trying to figure out some way to put his thoughts together to have them make sense. "Sometimes I feel like I _know_ you, Kara, even though we've just met, but even if I'm wrong on that, I _know_ that you really do know _me_," Karl licks his lips. "I don't know how or why it'd be true, but the more I see you, the more I know I'm right."

Kara bites her lip, thinking back to the conversation she and Lee'd had on the way home last night, and as tempted as she is to spill everything to Helo right now, she's not about to go against the agreement she made with Lee. Kara shakes her head against the temptation, "That's impossible," she declares.

Karl nods slowly then looks back out the canopy and takes over the controls. "Did you know when you lie you get this little crinkle between your eyes?" he observes so very casually. "I'm not saying you have to tell me what's going on," Karl steers back towards the Orion. "Tell me to frak off if I ask something I shouldn't, but I'm asking you right now," he tilts his head back Kara's way but doesn't lift his gaze to look her in the eye, "don't lie to me, okay?"

She has to fight for the next breath she takes in, and the sound it makes seems so harsh and obvious in this new quiet between them. Kara sets her hand over Karl's and squeezes. "I swear I won't," she promises, and only then does she look up at him.

And all of a sudden, Helo's looking right back at her too, "And _I_ swear I'll keep your secrets," he returns the second their eyes meet.

"They're not just _my_ secrets," she whispers haltingly.

"They're Apollo's, too," Helo nods. "I understand."

"I don't think you'd believe it, anyway," the words pour out of her without her consent.

"Maybe not," he shrugs. "But I still wouldn't tell."

And gods, she knows he's telling the truth. She nods, wishing desperately she could tell him everything right here and now, but then Helo simply lines up his raptor for his latest attempt at a landing.

"For gods' sakes, don't forget the maglock this time!" she blurts automatically when she sees the disaster about to happen out the canopy window.

"Don't worry. I got it," Karl insists, even as he takes it too fast and low.

Of course, they 'explode' a moment later. Kara turns her head away from the brightness of the raging fire on the viewscreen.

"Oops," Karl says mildly, cringe already set on his face when he turns to look at Kara.

Kara rolls her eyes. "Unbelievable! This is why we were trying it in slow motion. Take it back to the beginning," she orders, reprogramming the sim even as Helo restarts the checklist.

But even though she spends the next hour wincing at Helo's awkward landing attempts, even just sitting there with Karl by her side, Kara doesn't think she's ever felt more thrilled to give anyone a flying lesson. The feeling just continues when Helo accepts Kara's invitation to come to dinner with her and Lee.

She and Lee desperately need an ally, and Kara _knows_ they can trust Helo. She just has to find a way to convince Lee of it, and then they have to figure out a way to tell their friend about everything that's happened in a way that ensures their privacy somehow, regardless of whether they really are being watched.


End file.
